To track Microsoft 365 Copilot usage, start with the Microsoft Copilot usage report in the Microsoft 365 admin center. It shows licensed users, active users and prompts. It does not split usage by department, so you also need your department data from Microsoft Entra ID, the Copilot Dashboard in Viva Insights, or an analytics platform that joins usage to your HR data.
This guide walks through each step: where the admin center report lives and which roles can open it, how to get department-level views, how to export the data, and what Microsoft’s own Copilot usage dashboard still cannot show you. Every step links to Microsoft’s current documentation, because menus and license rules for Copilot reporting change often.
How to track Microsoft 365 Copilot usage by department, step by step
Step 1: Open the Copilot usage report in the Microsoft 365 admin center
Where to find it. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Reports (select Show all if you don’t see it), then Usage. Under Reports, select Microsoft Copilot, then Copilot, and open the Usage tab. Microsoft now calls this the Microsoft Copilot usage report (Microsoft Learn).
Roles you need. Any one of these roles can view admin center usage reports: Global Administrator, Exchange Administrator, SharePoint Administrator, Reports Reader, Teams Administrator, Teams Communications Administrator, AI Administrator, Usage Summary Reports Reader (no user details) or User Experience Success Manager (no user details). Microsoft recommends the role with the fewest permissions, so Reports Reader or AI Administrator is usually a better choice than Global Administrator (Microsoft Learn).
What it shows.
Enabled users: people with a Copilot license in the period.
Active users: enabled users who tried a user-initiated Copilot feature. Opening the Copilot pane does not count. Submitting a prompt does.
Active users rate: active users divided by enabled users.
Prompts submitted and average prompts per user.
Adoption by app: enabled and active users in Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Loop and Copilot Chat, as a summary or a daily trend.
A per-user table with prompts submitted, active days and last activity date for each Copilot app.
You can view the last 7, 28, 90 or 180 days. Data for a given day usually appears within 48 hours (Microsoft Learn).
Two related reports sit on the same page. The Copilot Chat report covers people without a Copilot license who use Copilot Chat (Microsoft Learn). The Agents report shows agent usage for licensed and unlicensed users over the last 7 or 30 days (Microsoft Learn).
Limits to know.
No department filter. The report is tenant-wide plus a per-user table. There is no built-in breakdown by department or team.
Names are hidden by default. All admin center usage reports conceal usernames, display names and groups. A Global Administrator can turn this off in Settings > Org settings > Services > Reports by clearing Conceal user, group, and site names in all reports. The change applies to the Graph reports API and Power BI too, and showing identifiable data is logged in the Microsoft Purview audit log (Microsoft Learn). Check your privacy policy and works council agreements before you change it.
Licensed users only. The per-user table lists everyone licensed for Copilot at any point in the past 180 days. Unlicensed Copilot Chat use is in the separate Copilot Chat report.
Last activity dates can lag. Microsoft notes that client events from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook can upload late, so the date may be blank or newer than the real date.
Audit logs are not a substitute. Microsoft says Purview audit log data is built for security and compliance, and that prompt or user counts built from it may not match the official usage reports (Microsoft Learn).
Step 2: Get department-level views
You have two native options.
Option A: Export the report and join it to your Entra ID department data. Export the per-user table (Step 3), then match each user principal name to the Department attribute in Microsoft Entra ID. Department lives under Job information on each user’s profile, and a User Administrator can edit it in the Microsoft Entra admin center. Many organizations sync it from their HR system with HR-driven provisioning (Microsoft Learn). This only works once user names are visible in the report, and it is only as accurate as your Department values. Blank or inconsistent values (“Sales” vs “Sales Dept”) show up as separate or missing groups.
Option B: Use the Copilot Dashboard in Viva Insights. This is Microsoft’s own Copilot usage dashboard, and it is the native route to adoption by group.
Licensing: It is available to any business or enterprise Microsoft 365 or Office 365 customer with an active Exchange Online account. You do not need a paid Viva Insights license or a Copilot license to view it (Microsoft Learn).
What you get by license count: Tenants with 1 to 49 Copilot licenses get the readiness page and the adoption and impact pages with group-level metrics and HR filters. Tenants with at least 50 Copilot licenses (or at least 50 Viva Insights licenses) also get benchmarks, agent insights, week- and month-level trendlines, and a group-level view for managers with delegation (Microsoft Learn).
Where department comes from: By default the Organization filter uses the Entra ID Department field, and the Scope filter uses the Entra ID ManagerID attribute to build reporting lines. A Global admin (in the Microsoft 365 admin center) or an Insights admin (in Viva Insights) can upload an organizational data file instead. Uploading permanently switches the dashboard’s source from Entra ID to the file, so you then need to upload fresh .csv files regularly. A Job function filter appears only if that attribute is uploaded (Microsoft Learn).
Who can see it: Global administrators, Viva Insights analysts with global access, delegates and enabled managers. In tenants with at least 2,500 Entra ID users where most people sit in one reporting line, senior leaders in the top three levels get access automatically (Microsoft Learn).
Privacy floor: Groups smaller than your minimum group size are hidden. The minimum is at least five people (Microsoft Learn).
Data window: Readiness, adoption and impact pages cover the previous 28 days, with up to a six-day delay. The adoption trend chart goes back six months.
From the admin center report: select Export above the per-user table to download a .csv of all users. Each chart also has an export option under the ellipsis menu (Microsoft Learn).
From the Copilot Dashboard (preview): select Export data, then Export by week (six months of week-level data) or Export by day (the last 28 days). Your tenant needs at least 50 Copilot or Viva Insights licenses, and you need global access to the dashboard; managers with team-level views cannot export. Personal identifiers are replaced with anonymized IDs unless an admin has enabled identifiable export. Exports include the Organization attribute, so department is already attached (Microsoft Learn).
Through Microsoft Graph: the getMicrosoft365CopilotUsageUserDetail report returns the per-user data for 7, 30, 90 or 180 days and needs the Reports.Read.All permission. It is a beta endpoint, which Microsoft says is not supported for production use (Microsoft Learn).
Microsoft’s reports answer “who has a license and who used it”. Leaders usually also ask questions these reports cannot answer:
How does Copilot compare with our other AI tools? Microsoft’s reports only cover the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Most organizations also run ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or coding assistants, and each vendor’s report uses different definitions.
Are people using AI outside their Copilot license? The admin center splits licensed Copilot and unlicensed Copilot Chat into separate reports.
Do department numbers match the real org chart? Native breakdowns depend on Entra ID Department values or a manually uploaded file.
Is AI usage changing how work gets done? Usage counts alone don’t show the effect on collaboration or output.
Worklytics pulls Microsoft 365 Copilot activity from the Microsoft Graph AI interaction history and counts each user prompt as a use (AI responses are excluded). Usage is broken down by app: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, BizChat and WebChat, plus a combined Microsoft 365 Copilot total. This is close to Microsoft’s own definition of an active user. The difference is that Microsoft treats active users as a subset of licensed seats, while Worklytics measures observed activity regardless of license.
From there, Worklytics:
Reports Copilot adoption by team, role and department, using the employees in your HRIS data.
Puts Copilot next to your other AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, in one view.
Groups AI activity into work categories like research, analysis, summarization, drafting and email creation.
Links AI usage to collaboration and productivity signals from the rest of your stack.
Lets you export the data to your own data warehouse or BI tools.
It is privacy-first. Prompt content is reduced to length and word counts and is never stored verbatim, and dashboards show aggregated, team-level results.
There are limits to know about. By default, coverage is limited to employees in your HRIS data. The Microsoft Graph AI interaction API is still in beta, and what it covers depends on your Microsoft 365 licensing and which Copilot surfaces you have enabled. It also provides no token, model or cost metrics. See what Worklytics collects from Microsoft Copilot for the full field list.
Why Microsoft Copilot Usage Tracking Matters
The temptation with new tools is to assume “if we deploy it, value will follow.” Copilot doesn’t work that way. Simply enabling access doesn’t guarantee widespread adoption or meaningful impact.
Tracking utilization helps ensure you’re getting value from the licenses you’ve purchased. Tracking who is using Copilot, how often, and for what provides visibility into adoption patterns that leadership, HR, and team managers care about:
Tracking usage matters for several reasons:
Adoption Measurement Who is using Copilot, and how often? Adoption rates vary dramatically between teams. Marketing may rely on Copilot daily for drafting content, while finance may use it occasionally for spreadsheet analysis. Without tracking, leaders can’t identify these adoption gaps. Are the Copilot licenses you bought being actively used, or do you have many seats sitting idle?
Productivity Insights Copilot’s value lies in saving time and improving output quality. Measuring usage helps correlate AI adoption with productivity outcomes such as reduced email time, faster reporting, or fewer meeting bottlenecks.
Change Management Any digital transformation effort needs reinforcement. If some teams hesitate to adopt, you’ll need training, enablement, or role-specific examples to show value. Usage data highlights where those interventions are needed.
Identifying obstacles If certain departments or roles show low Copilot usage, that flags an opportunity to investigate why. Maybe they lack training, or maybe the tool doesn’t yet meet their needs. Without data, these issues stay invisible.
Risk and Compliance AI systems introduce new governance considerations. Tracking usage ensures employees are applying Copilot responsibly and helps maintain compliance with company policies.
When evaluating Microsoft Copilot usage, organizations should look beyond simple login counts. The goal is to measure not just access, but engagement and outcomes. Here are the most relevant metrics:
Active Users
The number of licensed employees who submitted a prompt or used a Copilot feature on purpose in a given period. Microsoft counts a user as active only for intentional actions, so opening the Copilot pane is not enough. Compare active users with licenses assigned to find idle seats.
Usage Trends Over Time
Tracking usage over weeks and months shows the trajectory of adoption. Are more people using Copilot this month than last? Steady upward trends mean adoption is growing, whereas flat or declining usage may signal that the initial excitement has faded or obstacles have emerged.Feature Adoption
What Copilot capabilities are people using the most? A broad spread of feature usage suggests users are exploring the tool’s full range; concentrated use on a few features might indicate specific high-value use cases.Tool-Specific Usage Copilot works differently across Word, Excel, Teams, and Outlook. Tracking which apps employees leverage most can reveal team-specific use cases.
Task Categories
What kinds of tasks are employees using Copilot for? Drafting emails, generating reports, data analysis, meeting summaries, or brainstorming?
Time Saved
One of the hardest but most valuable metrics. By comparing average completion times before and after Copilot, organizations can estimate productivity impact and value to the organization.
User Satisfaction
Usage volume doesn’t equal value. Pairing tracking with employee feedback helps capture whether Copilot is genuinely improving work.
Team or Department Breakdown
Averages across the whole company can mask variations. It’s often enlightening to segment usage by department, role, or team. Breaking adoption down by department shows where licenses sit idle and where usage is already habitual. Step 2 above covers how to get that view.
Common Challenges in Measuring Usage
While the value of tracking is clear, organizations often face challenges when trying to measure Microsoft Copilot adoption:
Importance of a Clear Direction When goals and objectives are undefined, actions lose direction and impact. To move forward effectively, organizations need to understand not just what they are doing, but why they are doing it.
AI Skill Gap The true value of AI agents can only be realized when employees understand how to utilize them and fully harness their capabilities; without this knowledge, their impact on productivity remains limited.
Adoption Resistance Some employees may be hesitant to use AI due to fear of replacement, lack of trust, or insufficient training. Usage data often reveals these pockets of resistance.
Privacy Concerns Employees may worry that tracking AI usage feels intrusive. Organizations must ensure transparency about what is measured and why.
There's also a multi-tool problem: many engineering organizations run Codex, Claude Code or Cursor alongside GitHub Copilot, and each ships its own siloed analytics dashboard - so no single vendor view shows your true AI-assisted output.
Best Practices for Tracking Copilot Utilization
To get the most out of Microsoft Copilot usage data, organizations should adopt these best practices:
Set Clear Objectives Define what success looks like. Are you aiming to reduce time spent in meetings, improve documentation quality, or accelerate decision-making?
Use Both Quantitative and Qualitative Data Blend metrics like active usage with employee feedback. Together, they give a full picture of adoption.
Benchmark and Compare Compare Copilot usage across teams, departments, or even external benchmarks to identify leaders and laggards.
Prioritize Training If tracking reveals underutilization, provide tailored enablement resources, tutorials, and role-specific Copilot playbooks.
Maintain Transparency Be clear with employees about what is being tracked, how data is used, and how it benefits the organization.
Link Usage to Outcomes The ultimate goal isn’t usage for usage’s sake-it’s improved organizational performance. Always tie adoption metrics back to outcomes.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I track Copilot usage in Microsoft 365?
Open the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Reports, then Usage, then Microsoft Copilot, and select Copilot. The report shows enabled users, active users, prompts submitted and usage by app for the last 7, 28, 90 or 180 days. For department views, use the Copilot Dashboard in Viva Insights or export the per-user table and join it to your department data.
Can I see Copilot usage by department in the Microsoft 365 admin center?
Not directly. The admin center Copilot usage report has no department filter. You can export the per-user table and match it to the Department attribute in Microsoft Entra ID, or use the Copilot Dashboard in Viva Insights, whose Organization filter uses Entra ID Department by default.
What admin role do I need to view the Copilot usage report?
Any of these roles can view Microsoft 365 admin center usage reports: Global Administrator, Exchange Administrator, SharePoint Administrator, Reports Reader, Teams Administrator, Teams Communications Administrator or AI Administrator. Usage Summary Reports Reader and User Experience Success Manager can also view reports, but without user details. Microsoft recommends using the role with the fewest permissions.
Do I need a Viva Insights license to use the Copilot Dashboard?
No. The Copilot Dashboard is available to Microsoft 365 or Office 365 business and enterprise customers with an active Exchange Online account, without a paid Viva Insights or Copilot license. Some features, including benchmarks, agent insights, manager views and data export, need at least 50 Copilot or Viva Insights licenses in the tenant.
Why are user names hidden in the Copilot usage report?
Microsoft 365 admin center usage reports conceal user, group and site names by default to support privacy laws. A Global Administrator can change this in Settings, Org settings, Services, Reports. The change is recorded in the Microsoft Purview audit log.
Next step
Native Microsoft reports are the right place to start tracking Copilot usage. Once you need department-level views that match your org chart, or one view across Copilot and your other AI tools, see how Worklytics measures AI adoption.
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