Microsoft is expanding its AI toolkit with Copilot enhancements, building on prior developments like the Cowork for Microsoft 365, announced in March, which enables interaction across Outlook, Teams, Excel, PowerPoint, and SharePoint in a secure cloud environment with context preserved across devices.

An OpenClaw–inspired tool is being explored to add local agent capabilities, though it remains unclear whether tasks would run locally or in the cloud.

Microsoft has indicated the new OpenClaw alternative is ready to perform work at any time, even as the exact deployment model—local versus cloud—has not been confirmed.

The company is testing an OpenClaw-like feature within Microsoft 365 Copilot for corporate clients, emphasizing stronger security than open-source options.

The product is expected to be unveiled at the Microsoft Build conference in June.

In March, Microsoft also introduced Copilot Researcher features Critique and Council, enabling GPT and Claude to collaborate on a single task to boost accuracy.

Earlier in February, Copilot Tasks was launched as a cloud service to handle organizational tasks like email sorting and trip/meeting planning.

Cowork, developed with Anthropic on the Claude Cowork model, operates in the cloud rather than locally on hardware, unlike the new OpenClaw-like tool.