Copilot Code: what it does, what it costs and how admins turn it on

Copilot Code lets anyone in an organisation build their own app, dashboard or tracker from a plain-language description. Microsoft announced it for the Frontier program from the end of September 2026, and it is billed in Copilot Credits. The product documentation is not published yet, but Microsoft Learn already has a training module. A summary of everything Microsoft has said about Code publicly.

Copilot Code is one of three new capabilities Microsoft introduced on 25 September 2026, alongside Home and Autopilot. It gets its own Code tab in the Copilot app, where users with no programming background describe an app, dashboard, tracker, automation or workflow in plain language and have Copilot build it.

The product documentation for Copilot Code (admin guidance and reference pages) has not been published on Microsoft Learn yet. Microsoft has, however, released the training module Build solutions with Copilot Code, dated 23 September 2026. This summary is based on it, on Microsoft’s announcement, Message Center post MC1479277 (updated 5 October 2026) and the October 2026 Copilot Credits Guide.

What Copilot Code does

Microsoft describes Code as a new unit of work alongside documents, spreadsheets and decks: small, purpose-built solutions that people create for themselves. The user describes what they need, and Copilot chooses an approach and builds it: for example an app, a tracker, an interactive dashboard, an automation or a workflow. Apps meant for a team are shared as cloud-hosted internal apps on Copilot Managed Runtime.

Microsoft’s announcement also mentioned “persistent desktop widgets for quick reference” as an example. The other public sources, including the training module, don’t describe them yet, so treat them as announced intent rather than a confirmed feature.

Code is built on the same underlying technology as GitHub Copilot, but it does not require a GitHub Copilot licence. It runs in a sandboxed environment. Through Microsoft IQ it is grounded in the context of the user’s work, and the organisation’s plugins sync automatically. According to the Copilot Credits Guide, an optional Azure DevOps or GitHub connection adds versioning across teams, collaboration through pull requests, and automations.

An example from Microsoft’s guide: a user asks for a forecasting app based on the model in their Excel spreadsheet, with historical data from Dynamics and figures from Power BI, and a chart covering six months back and a year ahead.

According to Microsoft, developers should keep using GitHub Copilot for their day-to-day work, which gains more connectivity into the Copilot platform.

How you work with Code

The training module Build solutions with Copilot Code describes the process:

The Code tab in the Copilot app opens a workspace where the user describes the solution they want. If the tab isn’t there, the organisation hasn’t enabled Code yet, and the user should contact IT.
Three ways of working: interactive (step by step), plan (Code presents a plan first) and automatic (runs end to end with fewer interruptions). Available modes can vary with the rollout stage.
Starting material: users can upload spreadsheets, documents, presentations and PDFs, or build on content from earlier conversations. Work IQ can add context from emails, files and meetings where the organisation allows it, always within the user’s own permissions.
Plan and clarifying questions: Code restates the problem as it understands it, lists what it will build and the assumptions it makes, and asks when something is unclear.
Control over actions: Code asks before it takes certain actions, such as reading files or running commands.
Projects are saved automatically with a history of changes. You can return to an earlier version, export the project, or connect it to a GitHub account once the solution outgrows a single author.

The module recommends validating a result before sharing it: spot-check the data against the source, and check that the solution meets every requirement. Until it has been reviewed, Code’s output should be treated as a draft.

According to the module, Code suits reusable, interactive solutions. Chat is for one-off answers and drafts, Cowork for delegating a defined body of work, and Autopilot for keeping recurring work moving.

When and for whom

Microsoft announced Code rolling out to the Frontier program from the end of September 2026, with broad availability in the following weeks. As of 6 October, however, the product documentation is not published on Microsoft Learn, and Microsoft does not state the rollout status per tenant.
To build with Code, a user needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence and must be covered by a spending policy for Copilot Credits. Different rules apply to people who only use the apps (see below). According to the training module, Code also works with a personal Microsoft account on a supported plan.
Code runs in the Microsoft Copilot desktop app for Windows and Mac, and on the web for cloud development. No GitHub account, GitHub Copilot licence or coding experience is needed.
A preview for Microsoft 365 Premium and Pro subscribers is due later in 2026.

How admins turn it on

According to MC1479277, to enable Copilot Code for a tenant an admin must deploy the unified Copilot app and set its update channel to beta.

In addition:

The Cowork, Code and Autopilot entry points in the Copilot app are visible by default to all users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence.
Users without a spending policy cannot use the feature; when they click it, they see a message offering to request access or a Learn more link.
A new setting in the Microsoft 365 admin center controls which of the two users see, whether they may request credits, and whether requests are blocked. By default, enterprise users without a policy see the request-access option.
The existing setting that hid usage-based features (“Allow users to discover and use AI experiences enabled by usage-based billing”) will be removed. This change rolls out to standard customers in October and to deferred customers in November.

How spending policies work, and where they catch people out, is covered in detail in Copilot Credits in practice.

What it costs

Credits are consumed as users create, refine and publish solutions. Consumption depends on the model chosen, the context drawn from emails, files and meetings, the tools used, and the runtime that keeps multi-step work going.

Indicative consumption according to Microsoft’s guide (at the pay-as-you-go rate of US$0.01 per credit):

Task type	Example	Credits	Approx.
Light	a stand-up meeting timer that tracks each participant’s time	25–60	US$0.25–0.60
Medium	an onboarding checklist for a new hire that flags overdue steps	75–150	US$0.75–1.50
Heavy	an ROI app with adoption scenarios and sensitivity analysis	over 200	over US$2

These are rough planning estimates. Microsoft suggests estimating the number of Code users by typical role, the number of prompts each makes per category, and the monthly consumption from that.

Where the apps run

Apps built in Code run on Copilot Managed Runtime inside the Microsoft 365 tenant, under IT governance. Admins manage them in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Managed Runtime is in paid public preview, and running apps is billed separately through the Copilot Managed Runtime service in spending policies. Users with a Power Apps Premium licence have app runtime included within that licence’s limits.

People who only use an app open it in the Copilot Managed Runtime portal (managedapps.cloud.microsoft). According to the Managed Runtime documentation, they don’t need a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence: runtime eligibility comes either from a Power Apps Premium licence or from Copilot Credits through a spending policy for the Copilot Managed Runtime service. When credits are used, the developer documentation says each app launch is charged, plus 0.1 credit per API call. During preview, a user without an entitlement first sees a warning and is blocked after 20 app operations or five minutes of use.

The documentation states this explicitly for apps built in Cowork; for apps built in Code, which run on the same platform, Microsoft hasn’t confirmed it explicitly yet. Check before sharing an app widely.

Recommendations

Decide whether to pilot Code through the Frontier program, and if so, prepare a deployment of the unified Copilot app on the beta channel for the pilot group.
Create a separate spending policy for the pilot, targeted at a security group, with a limit and alerts.
Choose what users without a policy see: a request for access, or just more information.
Make sure app users have a runtime entitlement: a spending policy for the Copilot Managed Runtime service, or a Power Apps Premium licence. Without one, the app is blocked for them after a short while during preview.
Plan governance for the apps users build and share, including rules for Copilot Managed Runtime.