Microsoft Copilot training for teams in Canada

Which Copilot do your people have? A licence decoder

Microsoft now sorts work users into three Copilot experiences, and each person can see theirs: sign in at copilot.cloud.microsoft with a work account and a label appears under your name, either Copilot Chat (Basic), M365 Copilot (Basic) or M365 Copilot (Premium) (Microsoft Support). What each one can do, per Microsoft Learn, as of October 2026:

All three are covered by enterprise data protection when people sign in with their work (Microsoft Entra) account, and Microsoft says prompts and responses are not used to train the underlying models (Microsoft 365 Copilot Business). That protection does not apply when someone uses Copilot on a personal Microsoft account, which is why the first five minutes of every session are spent checking who is signed in where. For how ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini compare on training and retention, see does AI train on your data?

Microsoft Copilot prices in Canada (as of October 2026)

These are Microsoft's posted Canadian prices, before tax, per user per month (Business, Enterprise):

Microsoft changes these often. Check the live pages before budgeting.

The practical question: do you buy Premium for everyone? Usually not at first. A common, cheaper path is to train everyone on Copilot Chat, give the add-on to the people whose day is mostly email, meetings and documents, and decide on the rest once you can see who uses it. Copilot Chat usage reports work for every licence type, so you can see adoption before you spend.

What to check in your Microsoft 365 tenant before Copilot training

Ask whoever runs your Microsoft 365 admin centre to confirm these before the session. Each one has derailed a training day somewhere.

1. Who has which label. Have three attendees sign in at copilot.cloud.microsoft and read their label. If you expect Premium and see Basic, the licence isn't assigned.
2. Work accounts, not personal. People should be signed in with their Entra (work) account in the Copilot app, Edge and Office. Microsoft lists the entry points where a personal account can sneak in, and recommends tenant restrictions to control personal sign-in rather than blocking the Copilot URL (Microsoft Learn).
3. Network access. The Copilot app is moving to copilot.cloud.microsoft; Microsoft asks admins to allow `*.cloud.microsoft` so proxies and firewalls don't block it.
4. Copilot controls. In the admin centre, check whether web search grounding, image generation and agent creation are on or off, and whether anyone has removed Copilot Chat access.
5. Who owns AI admin. Microsoft offers an AI Administrator role, so someone can manage Copilot settings without being a Global Administrator.

Copilot security risks: the oversharing checklist

The biggest Copilot security risk in most organizations isn't Copilot itself. Microsoft 365 Copilot answers using whatever the signed-in person already has permission to open, so it surfaces files that were technically shared but never meant to be found: the "Everyone" folder with last year's salary sheet, a client contract on a forgotten team site (Microsoft Learn). Before giving out Premium licences, work through this list:

• Find "Everyone except external users" sharing. It's the most common way a sensitive file becomes readable by the whole company.
• Review sites with broad sharing links. Organization-wide links created years ago still work.
• Name an owner for every site. Sites without an active owner are where stale permissions pile up.
• Archive or delete inactive sites. Less clutter also means better Copilot answers.
• Label sensitive content. Sensitivity labels in Microsoft Purview let you classify files and limit what can be shared.
• Hide high-risk sites while you clean up. Restricted content discovery keeps chosen SharePoint sites out of Copilot and organization-wide search results without changing who can open them.
• Tell staff what Copilot can see. "It only shows what you can already open" is reassuring and alarming at the same time; people should hear both halves.

If you hold Microsoft 365 Copilot licences, SharePoint Advanced Management is included and gives admins data access governance reports for exactly this: permission snapshots across sites, the sites a given user can reach, sharing-link activity, and "Everyone except external users" insights, plus site access reviews that hand the clean-up to site owners (Microsoft Learn, SharePoint Advanced Management). Hero's AI security assessment includes a review of these AI-related settings, with access you approve and can remove.

Try it free firstNot ready to book? The free AI Hour runs online on the first Friday of every month (next: Fri, Nov 6, 12 PM ET). Or book a free 30-minute call to plan training for your team.

Copilot training agendas

90 minutes: Copilot for beginners (1:1 online)

A good fit for an owner, an executive assistant or a manager who wants to get comfortable before rolling Copilot out. Booked as 1:1 training at C$295 per 90-minute session.

• 10 min: check the label, the account and the apps you'll actually use
• 20 min: Outlook: summarize a long thread, draft a reply in your voice, fix the tone
• 20 min: Word or Copilot Chat: turn rough notes into a first draft, then check every fact against the source
• 20 min: Teams or Excel, whichever you use more: a meeting recap with action items, or a formula explained in plain words
• 20 min: what never goes in, how to spot a confident wrong answer, and the three prompts you'll reuse next week

Half day: Copilot training for employees (private team session)

A private session for your own team, from C$2,500, online anywhere in Canada or on site through our Toronto and GTA training. Details are on the team training page.

• Your licences, explained: the decoder above applied to your tenant, so nobody wonders why their screen looks different
• Prompting with context: audience, purpose, source and format, using fictional stand-ins for anything sensitive
• Hands-on lab by role: each person runs two of the role prompts below on their own non-sensitive work
• Copilot in meetings: recaps, action items, and when to say "please don't record this"
• Checking output: names, numbers, dates and anything Copilot pulled from a file you didn't expect
• Safe use: what Copilot can see, what never goes in, and who to ask
• 30-day plan: one repeatable task per person and a team check-in date

Microsoft also publishes free resources, including a prompt gallery and a short introductory course. They're worth sending people afterwards; a live session is for practising on your own work with someone who can answer "why did it do that?"

10 Copilot prompts by role

Copy these into the session or into your team's shared prompt list. Swap the brackets for your own details.

1. Executive assistant (Outlook): "Summarize this thread in five bullets: decisions made, open questions, who owns each next step, and any dates mentioned."
2. Manager (Teams): "From this meeting's recap, list the action items with an owner and due date. Flag anything that was discussed but not decided."
3. Sales (Word): "Turn these call notes into a one-page proposal outline for [fictional client type]: problem, what we'd do, timeline, open questions. Don't invent prices."
4. Finance (Excel): "Explain what this formula does in plain English, then suggest a simpler version that gives the same result."
5. Operations (Excel): "Group these rows by [column], total [column] for each group and show the top five as a chart."
6. HR (Word): "Rewrite this policy paragraph at a grade 8 reading level without changing its meaning. List anything that became less precise."
7. Client service (Outlook): "Draft a reply that apologizes for the delay, gives the new date of [date], and keeps a warm but brief tone. Under 120 words."
8. Marketing (PowerPoint): "Create a six-slide outline from this document for a 10-minute internal update. One idea per slide, speaker notes in plain language."
9. Project lead (Copilot Chat): "Here's the project brief. List the risks a sceptical client would raise and a one-line response to each."
10. Anyone (any app): "Before I send this, check it for unclear sentences, missing information and anything that sounds more certain than the source supports."

Prompts that pull from email, files and meetings automatically (1, 2 and the better versions of 3) need Premium; with Copilot Chat, open or upload the content first.

Which Copilot training format fits

Every price is on the pricing page. If you haven't decided between Copilot and another tool yet, an AI Readiness Assessment settles that before you train anyone.

FAQ: Copilot training

How much is Copilot training?

With Hero, 1:1 Copilot training is C$295 per 90-minute online session, and a private team half day starts at C$2,500, before tax. Microsoft's own self-paced material is free.

Do we need the paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licence for training to be worth it?

No. Copilot Chat is included with eligible business plans and covers drafting, summarizing and working with files you upload. Training on it first also shows you who would actually use the paid features.

Can you train executive assistants specifically?

Yes, as 1:1 sessions or as a block in a private team session: inbox triage, thread summaries, meeting prep and recaps, and calendar-heavy drafting in Outlook and Teams.

Is Microsoft Copilot safe for client information?

Signed in with a work account, Copilot runs under enterprise data protection and Microsoft says prompts aren't used to train its models. The bigger risk is oversharing: Copilot can surface any file the person already has access to, so fix permissions first.

Do you offer Microsoft certification?

No. Hero's training is practical and not tied to a Microsoft exam. If you need a formal credential, check the certification catalogue on Microsoft Learn.