Microsoft rolls out Project Opal, a Copilot feature for autonomous multi-step office tasks

Microsoft has rolled out Project Opal, a Copilot feature that goes beyond answering questions and starts doing office chores on its own. You describe the job, and Opal builds a plan, opens a secure Windows 365 Cloud PC, and gets to work across browser-based apps, sites, and data inside your organization.

The pitch is simple: give it a task and let it grind away quietly in the background. It can handle a range of work, from managing security group membership requests to collecting audit evidence for compliance reviews, triaging IT incidents from meeting notes or transcripts, and pulling Excel data into a financial close deck.

Microsoft is also trying to keep the machine on a leash. Opal works only in a browser-only setup, uses your identity, and is supposed to stay within the data and systems you’re already allowed to access. It won’t enter passwords or submit forms without explicit confirmation, and suspicious activity is supposed to trigger a pause. Every action is logged.

There’s some real flexibility built in. Users can pause, resume, duplicate, or delete jobs, and can take control of the Cloud PC at any point through a Remote Desktop interface before handing it back. If Opal needs more detail, it stops and asks. You can also start adding extra instructions while it runs.

Microsoft says you can have up to three jobs running at once; try for a fourth and the oldest one closes out. The company also points to Skills, a way to create repeatable instructions by importing a .md file, writing one from scratch, or talking Opal through the task until it behaves the way you want.