What Is It?

Copilot Chat is Microsoft's secure, web-grounded AI chat tool, available to all UNT System students, faculty, and staff at no additional cost as part of our Microsoft agreement. 

If you are logged in with your work/school account, it provides enterprise data protection (EDP), meaning your conversations are never used to train AI models and are protected within Microsoft's security boundary. Think of it as a capable, trusted AI assistant you can use anytime for day-to-day tasks.

Who Is It For?

  • All students, faculty, and staff — no additional license required
  • Anyone who needs quick AI assistance for drafting, research, or brainstorming
  • A great starting point for anyone new to AI tools

What Can You Do With It?

  • Draft and rewrite emails, reports, memos, and other documents
  • Summarize long articles, PDFs, or documents you upload
  • Brainstorm ideas and get feedback on your work
  • Ask questions and get answers grounded in current web information
  • Generate images (limited)
  • Write and review basic code

How to access Copilot Chat?

Copilot Chat is included with your UNT System account at no extra cost. To get enterprise data protection, you must sign in with your UNT System work or school account — not a personal Microsoft account.

Step-by-step:

  1. Go to copilot.microsoft.com in your browser. (You can also open it from the Microsoft 365 app launcher — the waffle menu in the top-left of any M365 web app — and choose "Copilot".)
  2. Click Sign in in the top-right corner.
  3. Enter your UNT System email (for example, firstname.lastname@untsystem.edu) and complete SSO and multi-factor authentication.
  4. Confirm you're protected: look for the green "Enterprise data protection" shield near the prompt box, and confirm your name and UNT System account appear in the top-right avatar. If you see "Personal account" or your work account is missing, click the avatar and switch accounts before continuing.

Tip: Bookmark the page after signing in so you don't accidentally land on the consumer version next time. The consumer version does not provide enterprise data protection.

Available on mobile and desktop: Copilot Chat is also available in the Microsoft 365 mobile app and in Microsoft Edge's Copilot side pane — sign in with your UNT System account in either place.

Reminder — read before you paste: Copilot Chat is approved for public information and general institutional work only. Do not paste or upload SSNs, HIPAA-covered data, FERPA-protected student records, or other regulated data. See Regulations, Policies, and Standards(opens in new window) for full guidance.

Feature Detail
Cost Free – Included in our Microsoft agreement
Enterprise Data Protection checkmark / yes
Web-grounded answers checkmark / yes
File/document upload checkmark / yes
Access to your M365 data Limited (not full integration
Image generation Limited

Data and Security

Copilot Chat is approved for use with public information and general institutional work. You may upload documents for analysis, but they should not contain sensitive, regulated, or restricted data (e.g., SSNs, HIPAA-covered data, FERPA-protected records).

Copilot Chat includes Microsoft's Enterprise Data Protection — your data stays within Microsoft's secure environment and is not used to train AI models.