Can Copilot transcribe audio to text?

Copilot Chat does not document a way to upload an audio file and get a transcript back, so the answer for Copilot itself is no. The audio file route Microsoft does describe is in Word: under Home, choose Dictate, then Transcribe, and upload an audio file ¹. That feature is for Word for Microsoft 365 on Windows in commercial tenants, and it has a monthly limit on minutes that depends on your license.

This is what Microsoft's pages say on 2026-10-16. Copilot features change, so check Microsoft's current article before you plan work around a feature.

Copilot Chat has no documented audio file transcription

Microsoft's Copilot voice pages cover three things: dictation, which turns your speech into a prompt, read aloud, which has Copilot speak its replies, and Copilot Voice, a live spoken conversation. None of these describes uploading a recording and receiving its text.

Copilot does produce a text record of your voice chat. When a voice conversation ends, a text transcript is available for reference ². That is a log of your own chat, not a transcription service for a recording you made elsewhere.

Copilot in Microsoft Teams works from a transcript too, but of a meeting. To prompt Copilot about a Teams meeting, or see its history after the meeting, live transcription must be on during the meeting ³. The transcript comes from the meeting, not from a file you upload afterwards.

Word's Transcribe feature uploads audio files

Word can transcribe an audio file you upload. In the Transcribe pane, select Upload audio ⁴. Word accepts .wav, .mp4, .m4a and .mp3 files ⁵.

The feature has three limits you should check before you rely on it:

Government tenants get the feature only in Word for the web ⁹.

It depends on your license, tenant and operating system

Three conditions decide whether you can use Word's feature. The first is the license. A Microsoft 365 subscription allows 300 minutes a month ⁷, and a Copilot license allows 30,000 minutes ⁸, so a team that transcribes a lot of interviews needs the second. The second is the tenant. A commercial tenant can use the feature in Word on Windows, and a government tenant can only use it in Word for the web. The third is the operating system. The feature is listed for Windows, so a Mac user needs another route.

The minute limits are monthly, so a long backlog of files may need to be spread across months, or handled with a different tool.

What to do if you need a transcript

1. If you have Word for Microsoft 365 on Windows in a commercial tenant, open a document and go to Home, then Dictate, then Transcribe, and select Upload audio ⁴. Keep the Transcribe pane open while it works.
2. For a single file and no Microsoft 365 setup, use a browser tool. Our free audio to text page transcribes a file in the browser, and the guide to transcribing audio to text explains the options and their accuracy.
3. For a meeting, turn on transcription during the meeting. The guide to meeting transcription covers the tools that do this. Copilot in Teams can answer about the meeting only from a transcript that exists.

If you only want to dictate your own words rather than transcribe a recording, use Copilot dictation for a prompt, or Windows voice typing for a document. Transcribing a recording and dictating live are different jobs, which the entry on dictation explains.

For the wider picture, the overview of Copilot's voice features lists each tool, and the question on talking to Copilot on Windows covers the spoken conversation.