Apps Enable or Disable Copilot Cowork to Automatically Take Actions in Copilot app on Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable allowing Copilot Cowork to automatically take actions on your behalf in the Copilot app for your account or all users in Windows 11.

The Microsoft Copilot app is your AI app for work. Copilot connects to the Microsoft 365 apps and content you use every day, creates polished documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, gets things done with Cowork, lets you choose between leading AI models, understands your job and company through Work IQ, and keeps your data protected.

When you sign in to Copilot, your experience adapts to your account: a licensed work-or-school experience with enterprise data protection, or a personal experience for individuals, with or without a Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, or Premium subscription.

Copilot Cowork carries out tasks on your behalf. You describe what you need in natural language, and Cowork does the work, creating documents, drafting and sending email, scheduling meetings, and managing files. You review and approve sensitive actions before it happens.

Before Cowork takes certain actions, including writing files, it asks for your permission by default.

Copilot will always ask for your approval or hand control back to you for some actions to help reduce the risk of unintended outcomes. Copilot might ask you to take over if a site restricts automated interaction, requires additional sign-in steps or manual interaction (such as for purchases, bookings, or accessing protected content), or presents other challenges. These include:

• Monetary transactions, such as completing a purchase or submitting payment.
• Submitting personal information to external websites, such as names, addresses, or phone numbers.
• Actions involving other people, such as sending emails or messages.
• Account altering actions, including deleting files, modifying cloud storage, canceling subscriptions, or changing account settings.
• Sensitive actions, such as health related submissions, government documents, or security related changes.

You can turn on Allow Cowork to take actions on your behalf so Cowork may automatically perform some tasks such as creating tabs, taking screenshots, and interact with web pages.

References:








1 Open the Copilot app.

2 Open Copilot Chat settings.

3 Click/tap on Web browsing on the left side. (see screenshot below)

4 Turn on or off (default) Allow Cowork to take actions on your behalf for what you want.

You must be signed in as an administrator to use this option.

1 Do step 2 (always enable), step 3 (disable), or step 4 (default) below for what you want.

This will override and gray out Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

This will override and gray out Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

This is the default setting to allow using Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

5 Save the .reg file to your desktop.

6 If you have Smart App Control turned on, you will need to unblock the downloaded REG file.

7 Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

8 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

9 If the Copilot app is currently open, then either quit and reopen the Copilot app, sign out and sign in to Windows, or restart the computer to apply.

10 You can now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.


That's it,
Shawn Brink