Better Copilot Audit Records and Copilot Chat Appears in Classic Outlook

Copilot Audit Records Now Include Resources Used in Responses

In April 2024, I wrote about the appearance of audit events to capture details when Microsoft 365 applications call Copilot to process a user request (prompt). These events have an operation type of CopilotInteraction.

Since then, Microsoft announced progress in capturing records when people use Copilot in the Stream player to query video transcripts (MC720180, last updated 22 May 2024). It’s like MC720180 (also updated on 22 May 2024), which describes using Copilot to interact with meetings. In both cases, the important point is that the audit events generated for Copilot interactions capture details of resources accessed by Copilot when responding to user prompts (previously the AccessedResources property in the AuditData payload was empty).

Linked to the Change in Transcript Storage Location

Because Copilot depends on meeting transcripts to answer queries, meeting interactions are only possible when meetings are recorded with a transcript. As discussed last week, Teams is standardizing on OneDrive for Business storage for the MP4 files generated for meeting recordings and transcripts. Like many situations in Microsoft 365, developments reported in one message center notification are linked to what’s described in another, seemingly unconnected, update.

The change should be effective in most places now as Microsoft aims to complete worldwide deployment in early June 2024.

Updated Script to Handle Copilot Audit Records

To test the effectiveness of the change, I updated the script I wrote for the previous article (downloadable from GitHub) to support audit records generated by the Stream player and to pay more attention to the data recorded in the associated resources property. Figure 1 shows the output of the script as viewed through the Out-GridView cmdlet.

Please check out the updated script and let me know if it’s helpful or could be improved.

Copilot in Outlook Classic

Speaking of Copilot, for a long time Microsoft communicated the message that Copilot experiences would only be available in the new Outlook client (aka Monarch). This was no more than a thinly-disguised ploy to drive adoption for Monarch, which still isn’t close to ready for consumption by corporate users.

In any case, message center notification MC794816 (21 May 2025, Microsoft 365 roadmap item 388753) reports the availability of the Copilot for Microsoft 365 chat experience for Outlook classic (Win32). This feature joins “Summarize,” the Copilot option that extracts the major points from an email thread (my second favorite Copilot feature after meeting summarization), and the option to have Copilot draft or revise message drafts. Microsoft will roll out Copilot for Microsoft 365 chat to Outlook classic in the current channel in June 2024.

Before anyone gets too excited, let me say that Copilot for Microsoft 365 chat in Outlook is the same application as accessed as a web application and in Teams. The only difference is that Copilot has an icon in the Outlook application bar and runs in the Outlook window (Figure 2). In other words, if you’re used to Copilot chat elsewhere, you’ll find no difficulty using it in Outlook, providing you have the necessary Copilot for Microsoft 365 license.

As you can see from Figure 2, chats generated in other instances of the client are available in Outlook.

Change, Change, and More Change

Change is ongoing within Microsoft 365. Some changes are dependent on other changes, such as Copilot audit records capturing associated resources for the Stream player. Others are the delivery of incremental functionality within an application. The trick is to keep an eye on what’s happening and to recognize what kind of change each message center notification represents. That’s sometimes hard to do based on the way Microsoft describes a change. Oh well, into every life a little rain must fall…

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So much change, all the time. It’s a challenge to stay abreast of all the updates Microsoft makes across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Subscribe to the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook to receive monthly insights into what happens, why it happens, and what new features and capabilities mean for your tenant.