Is Copilot private? Personal vs work accounts explained

Copilot is private from other users, but Microsoft and, on a work account, your employer can see more than many people expect. Which rules apply depends on how you sign in: a personal Microsoft account or a work or school account, and on Microsoft's own pages those are two different products with two different privacy setups.

There is also a recent twist. On August 18, 2026 Microsoft released an updated Copilot app, and its help pages now describe the older and newer apps separately. Here is what each one says, checked on November 11, 2026.

Personal Copilot: does Microsoft train on your chats?

For the updated app, Microsoft says no. Its activity history page states: "Prompts, responses, and your file contents when using the Microsoft Copilot app aren't used to train foundation models." Feedback you choose to send may be used to improve Copilot, but Microsoft says not to train those models.

The older app worked differently. Microsoft's privacy FAQ for the older app says it used "your voice and conversation activity with Copilot, including the images or files you upload" for AI training unless you opted out, were under 18, or lived in one of a few excluded countries. It kept conversations for 18 months by default, and said some chats got human review, with "an opt-out of human review" not available.

If you use Copilot on the web or have installed the new app, the updated rules apply to you, Microsoft says. If you still have the older app, note the deadline on that FAQ: sign in to the updated app by December 31, 2026, or chats that have not moved over "will be permanently deleted."

What the updated Copilot app does save

Not training on your chats is not the same as not keeping them. On a personal account, the updated app keeps:

• Your chat history, so you can go back to past conversations.
• Memories. Copilot can remember "your communication style, favorite topics, goals, and recurring tasks" from your chats.
• Shared experiences. Your Copilot chats can personalize Bing, Edge and MSN, and the other way round.
• Ad signals. If you have no Microsoft 365 subscription, you "might see advertising in Copilot." With ad personalization on, those ads "might use your chat history, saved memories, and other Microsoft data."

Microsoft's pages for the updated app do not give a default retention period and do not say either way whether people review chats, so if that matters to you, keep sensitive details out. One clear number is in the transparency note: images shared with Copilot Vision "are deleted within 30 days after the conversation ends."

Copilot privacy settings to change (personal account)

All four switches below are on Microsoft's privacy controls page for the updated app. Sign in to Copilot with your Microsoft account, open Settings, then Personalization.

1. Saved memories. Turn the toggle off to stop Copilot saving new memories. This does not delete old ones, so also select Manage and then Delete all memories.
2. One shared experience. Turn it off to stop your Copilot chats from shaping Bing, Edge and MSN, and vice versa.
3. Allow ads personalization. Turn it off so ads in Copilot don't draw on your chat history. You will still see generic ads based on the current conversation if you have no Microsoft 365 plan. To switch off personalized ads across Microsoft, use the Microsoft privacy dashboard.
4. Web search. Optional. Turning it off stops Copilot searching the web for answers.

To delete a single chat, pick it in the Chats list on the left, select More (the three dots), then Delete.

Export or delete all your Copilot history

Go to the Microsoft privacy dashboard at account.microsoft.com/privacy and sign in. Then go to Privacy, Empower your productivity, Copilot, Your Copilot app activity history, Copilot apps. Choose Export all activity history to download a CSV file, or Delete all activity history and confirm with Clear. These steps come from Microsoft's privacy dashboard guide. Export first if you want a copy.

Still on the older app?

The older app had its own training switches under Privacy: Training on conversation activity and Training on voice conversations, per its privacy controls page. Microsoft noted that opting out did not stop use of your chats for "advertising, digital safety, security, and compliance purposes." Moving to the updated app before December 31 is the simpler fix.

Copilot inside Word, Outlook and Excel at home

If you pay for Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, Premium or Pro, Copilot also lives in the Office apps. Microsoft's home plan privacy page says it only uses "the content in the file that you're working in" or another file you point it at, and that "prompts, responses, and your file contents" are not used to train foundation models.

To switch Copilot off in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote, turn off either Experiences that analyze content or All connected experiences in the app's privacy settings. Microsoft warns that this also turns off other features. Your Office Copilot history has its own section in the privacy dashboard, under Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps.

Is Copilot private at work?

From Microsoft, mostly yes. From your employer, no.

On a work or school account, Microsoft says prompts, responses and the company data Copilot reads "aren't used to train foundation LLMs," per its Microsoft 365 Copilot privacy documentation. It also says Copilot services have opted out of the Azure OpenAI abuse monitoring that includes human review of content.

Your organization, though, keeps a record. Microsoft says every interaction is stored, "the user's prompt and Copilot's response, including citations." Admins "can use Content search or Microsoft Purview" to view it and can set retention policies for it. For Copilot Chat on the web, Microsoft's work and school data protection page is direct: "Your prompts, Bing search queries triggered by your prompts, and responses in Copilot Chat are logged. Your IT admin can use search and audit tools from Microsoft to view this logged information."

So yes, your employer can see your Copilot history and prompts, if someone with the right admin role goes looking. Deleting a chat on your side does not tell you what your company's retention policy has kept. Treat a work Copilot like work email, which we cover in can my employer read my email?

Is Copilot safe for confidential work information?

That depends on your company's rules, not on Copilot. Microsoft says Copilot "only surfaces organizational data to which individual users have at least view permissions," so it should not show you files you could not already open. But that also means a badly shared folder is now easy to find by asking. If your workplace has an AI policy, follow it, and keep personal matters out of a work account entirely.

Frequently asked questions

Does Copilot train on your data?

For the updated personal Copilot app, Microsoft says prompts, responses and file contents are not used to train foundation models. For work accounts and Microsoft 365 home plans, it says the same. The older personal app did train on chats unless you opted out.

Can my employer see my Copilot chats?

Yes, on a work or school account. Microsoft says prompts and responses are stored and that admins can view them with Content search, Microsoft Purview or audit tools. A personal Microsoft account is a separate account with the personal rules described above.

How do I delete my Copilot history?

Delete single chats from the Chats list with More and Delete. To clear everything, use the Microsoft privacy dashboard: Privacy, Empower your productivity, Copilot, then Delete all activity history.

Does Copilot show ads based on my chats?

It can. Without a Microsoft 365 subscription you may see ads in Copilot, and with Allow ads personalization on they may use your chat history and saved memories. Turn that toggle off for generic ads only. Microsoft says it does not show personalized ads to users under 18.

What happens to my old Copilot chats?

If you used the older Copilot app, Microsoft says to sign in to the updated app by December 31, 2026 to keep eligible chats. Content that has not been migrated by then will be permanently deleted.

Keep the sensitive stuff out of the chat box

Whatever the settings say, the safest habit with any AI assistant is the same: don't paste in passwords, bank details, health records or someone else's private message. Much of that kind of information starts out in your inbox.

If you want an inbox that is not part of an ad business, Secria Mail has no ads and Secria never mines your mail. Your mailbox is locked with a key made from your password, on your device, and sign-up needs only a name, the address you want and a password, with no phone number. You can import your old mail from Outlook or Gmail when you move.