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What Microsoft Copilot Does With Your Data—and How to Manage Privacy Settings

Microsoft Copilot has no universal privacy switch. Learn which settings apply to personal Copilot, Microsoft 365 home apps, and work or school accounts.
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There is no single privacy switch for all Microsoft AI features. The right settings depend on whether you use the personal Copilot app, Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps for home, or Copilot with a work or school account. Pick the product and account you actually use, then manage its controls; a consumer setting does not change your organization’s Microsoft 365 policies.

Microsoft says its updated Copilot app became available on August 18, 2026. Its current privacy guidance is separate from instructions for the previous app version, so check that you are following the guide for your version.

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Which Copilot experience are you using?

Start by checking the account shown in the app or service. A personal Microsoft account and a work or school account have different privacy controls and governance. Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps for home is also a distinct experience from the personal Copilot app.

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Experience Account Where to focus
Copilot app for personal use Personal Microsoft account Copilot settings, including Personalization, and the Microsoft privacy dashboard where directed.
Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps for home Personal Microsoft account Microsoft 365 privacy settings for connected experiences.
Copilot Chat for work or school Work or school account Your organization’s account, policies, and administrator controls.
Microsoft 365 Copilot for an organization Work or school account Your organization’s Microsoft 365 governance, including its retention and audit arrangements.

Does Copilot use your chats to train AI?

The answer depends on the product. Microsoft’s documentation for Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps for home says: “Prompts, responses, and your file contents when using Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps aren’t used to train foundation models.” For work or school Copilot Chat, Microsoft says: “Your prompts, including any work content you add to the prompt, and Copilot’s responses aren’t used to train foundation models.” These statements apply to the products named in Microsoft Support’s respective privacy pages; they should not be generalized to every Copilot experience.

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The personal Copilot privacy guidance lists controls for memory, shared experiences, chat history, web search, and advertising. The available documentation does not establish a training rule for every personal-account configuration, so consult Microsoft’s current privacy page for the personal Copilot app you use rather than inferring one from settings for another product.

How do you manage privacy in the personal Copilot app?

Use Microsoft’s current individual privacy guidance for the updated Copilot app. Microsoft maintains separate instructions for the previous app version. In the app, the relevant controls include the following; menu names may change.

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Saved memories

In Copilot settings, open Personalization to manage Saved memories. Turning Saved memories off stops Copilot from saving memories, but it does not erase memories already stored. Use the separate Manage or Delete options to remove saved items.

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Chat history

Chat-history management is separate from the memory setting. If you want to remove conversations, use the chat-history control described in the current Copilot privacy guidance. Turning off model training, where that control is offered, should not be treated as a way to delete chat history.

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Shared experiences across Microsoft services

Microsoft says personal Copilot chats can inform shared experiences across Bing, Edge, and MSN. The One shared experience setting is distinct from the advertising control, so changing one should not be assumed to change the other. Microsoft also lists importing Edge browsing data as a control for users in the United States; availability is region-specific.

Personalized advertising

Microsoft says generic ads can depend on the current conversation. Personalized ads may use chat history, saved memories, and other Microsoft data you chose to share. Manage advertising through its separate control; switching off Saved memories alone does not govern ad personalization.

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Web search

Web search has its own listed control in personal Copilot. Review that setting in the current app guidance if you want to manage whether Copilot uses web search; do not assume that changing memory, chat history, or shared experiences also changes it.

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What changes when you turn off connected experiences in Microsoft 365 apps for home?

For Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps for home, Microsoft identifies Experiences that analyze content and All connected experiences as relevant privacy settings. Disabling either setting disables Copilot in the listed Microsoft 365 apps—Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and OneNote—and can also affect other connected features. This is a broader feature trade-off than changing a setting in the personal Copilot app.

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Microsoft’s home-app privacy page says prompts, responses, and file contents used with Copilot in those apps are not used to train foundation models. Activity-history behavior can vary by app and device, so do not assume one history setting or retention behavior covers every Microsoft 365 app.

Can your work or school administrator see Copilot activity?

For work or school Copilot Chat, Microsoft says prompts, Bing queries triggered by Copilot, and responses are logged and can be viewed by IT administrators through Microsoft search and audit tools. Enterprise data protection applies when you are signed in with a work or school account, but that does not mean your conversations are private from your organization’s authorized administrators.

Microsoft 365 Copilot interaction records include prompts and responses, are encrypted at rest, and are not used to train foundation models, according to Microsoft’s organizational documentation. Administrators can use Microsoft Purview and other tools to manage access, audit, and retention. The exact tenant configuration can depend on licenses, administrator settings, Purview configuration, connected experiences, and enabled agents.

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What to ask your IT administrator

  • How long Copilot prompts, responses, and related records are retained in your organization.
  • Which administrators or compliance staff can search or audit those records.
  • Which sensitivity labels, access permissions, and agents apply to the data you use with Copilot.
  • Whether Work IQ references Microsoft 365 work data in the Copilot app, if that feature is available in your environment.

How does Copilot access work files?

Microsoft says work Copilot presents information a user can access under existing Microsoft 365 permissions and controls. It is not a substitute for sound access governance: if files are overshared, users may already have access to content they should not see. Microsoft’s guidance directs administrators to identify and remediate overshared content, and organizations should review permissions and governance rather than relying on Copilot settings alone.

What these privacy controls do—and do not do

  • Training controls, where documented, address use of data to train foundation models; they are not the same as deleting chats or memories.
  • Saved-memory controls and chat-history deletion are separate actions.
  • Personal Copilot controls do not govern a work or school Microsoft 365 tenant.
  • Microsoft’s pages describe its published policies and controls, not an independent audit of every configuration. For work accounts, ask the organization about its actual policy and setup.

Microsoft has described an 18-month default conversation-history period in personal Copilot FAQ material, but that figure is not established for every current Copilot experience. Check the current product-specific retention settings, or ask your organization about its policy, rather than applying that duration across products or accounts.

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