Did you know that Microsoft Copilot Chat offers several ways to tailor your chat experience? With a few simple setting adjustments, you can now customize your experience, so responses better match your role, preferences, and work style.
Through the Personalization tab in Chat settings, UMB faculty, staff, and students can customize how Copilot responds, what it remembers, and the context it uses when answering questions. Customizing these settings can help you get more relevant, efficient, and useful results from your prompts. This article walks through how to access these settings in the Copilot Chat web experience and highlights practical ways to personalize them.
How to Access Personalization Settings
You can access Personalization settings directly from the Copilot Chat prompt screen:
1. Open Microsoft Copilot Chat in your web browser.
2. Select the three-dot menu […] near the prompt area.
3. Choose Settings.
4. Select the Personalization tab.
Customizable Personalization Options
The Personalization tab includes options that shape how Copilot interacts with you:
Memory: The Memory setting allows Copilot to remember information you choose to share over time, such as preferences, recurring tasks, or goals. When enabled, Copilot can use this context to provide more tailored responses in future chats and you can view or clear memories at any time if your needs change. For example, a staff member who frequently writes campus announcements might turn on Memory and note that they create communications for faculty and staff with mixed technical experience.
Custom instructions: Custom instructions let you guide how Copilot responds. You can specify tone, format, reading level, or accessibility considerations. For example, that same staff member might add an instruction that Copilot use plain language, short paragraphs, and bullet points, resulting in responses that are clearer, more accessible, and closer to ready for publication.
Why Personalization Matters
Taking a few minutes to customize Copilot can save time, reduce repetitive prompting, and produce responses that better align with your work at UMB. Whether you prefer short answers, structured checklists, or role-specific guidance, Personalization settings help Copilot work the way you do. Learn more about how to personalize M365 Copilot Chat.