Microsoft recently introduced Researcher with "computer usage" in Microsoft 365 Copilot, a major leap forward in the evolution of autonomous artificial intelligence. With this new feature, Copilot moves beyond being just an information-gathering assistant to become an active partner capable of performing tasks on your behalf—all within a secure virtual environment.
In other words, Copilot can now "use a computer" on its own: browsing public websites, accessing credential-protected content, interacting with pages, filling out forms, and even generating more complex outputs like presentations or data reports.
What’s most remarkable is that all of this takes place inside an isolated virtual machine, powered by Windows 365 in the cloud. This environment functions as a temporary, session-specific computer, ensuring enterprise-level security and privacy at all times.
Thanks to this innovation, Microsoft takes productivity to the next level: a Copilot that not only thinks, but also acts.
With this new capability, Microsoft 365 Copilot Researcher takes research to a whole new level. Users can now ask the assistant to do much more than gather information: it can prepare reports for client meetings, analyze industry trends from restricted sources, create personalized reading lists based on ongoing projects, and even turn all that information into shareable, ready-to-use presentations.
The best part is that it all happens in a connected and intelligent way. Researcher can access meetings, files, emails, and work chats—integrating all that information without compromising user security or control.
When active, the system combines various tools to carry out tasks from start to finish: visual browsers, text readers, command terminals, and the power of Microsoft Graph, which links your organization’s data to deliver precise, context-rich results.
Researcher with computer usage experience
One of the key advantages of Microsoft 365 Copilot Researcher is that you control how far it can go. Users can easily customize which data sources the system can access, and for security, enterprise data remains disabled by default when the computer usage feature is activated.
Additionally, Copilot never takes action without your permission. Before performing any task, it asks for explicit confirmation, and if authentication is required, the user can securely take over through a shared session.
Microsoft has also enhanced security to minimize the risks associated with autonomous AI operations. Everything runs within a fully isolated virtual machine, with no direct connection to corporate networks or user devices. In short: Researcher works for you, but always on your terms.
Users can choose to enable work data sources
Security remains a top priority in Microsoft 365 Copilot Researcher. Every time the system performs an operation on the web, security classifiers carefully analyze the domain, validate its legitimacy, and check that the content is genuinely relevant to the user's query. This level of scrutiny helps prevent exposure to cross-site injection attacks or jailbreak attempts—common threats in automated browsing environments.
In addition, all actions performed by the browser within the isolated environment are logged using Microsoft 365 Copilot’s standard auditing mechanisms. This ensures traceability, transparency, and full control for administrators.
Moreover, user credentials are never shared or transferred in or out of the test environment, and all temporary files are automatically deleted at the end of each session.
The orchestration layer establishes the connection with this isolated virtual environment.
Read more: Discover the New Copilot Features with GPT-5 in Microsoft 365
In Microsoft 365 Copilot Researcher, administrators retain full control through the Microsoft Admin Center. From there, they can determine which security groups have access to the “computer usage” feature, manage allowlists or blocklists of domains, and define whether users can combine enterprise information with data obtained from the web.
Thanks to this centralized management, organizations can tailor access levels according to their internal policies, ensuring security, compliance, and control in every research task.
Admin Controls
The performance tests speak for themselves: Microsoft 365 Copilot Researcher showed a 44% improvement in complex browsing tasks according to BrowseComp benchmark tests, and a 6% gain in GAIA evaluations.
These assessments go beyond measuring speed—they also evaluate the system’s ability to reason with information from multiple sources, connect disparate data points, and solve real-world research challenges that require access to various datasets and enterprise records.
In short, the results confirm that Researcher doesn’t just automate information retrieval—it understands it and turns it into actionable knowledge.