Does Microsoft 365 Copilot keep data in Australia?

Office 365 Services: If Customer provisions its tenant in Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Japan, Norway, Qatar, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, or the United States, Microsoft will store the following Customer Data at rest only within that Geo: (5) any stored content of interactions with Microsoft 365 Copilot or Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat to the extent not included in the preceding commitments or subject to Data Residency for Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat.

Note: Applies to tenants provisioned in Australia, at no additional cost, for the length of the agreement. "Content of interactions" means the user's prompt and Copilot's response. Microsoft 365 Copilot was added to the Product Terms commitment on 1 March 2024 and Copilot Chat on 1 September 2025. The Learn page quotes the Product Terms and says the Product Terms webpage prevails if they differ. Copilot Cowork has its own listed commitment, which includes Australia. Advanced Data Residency (ADR) and Multi-Geo add-ons also cover Copilot. Microsoft has renamed Microsoft 365 Copilot to "Microsoft Copilot"; the commitment text still uses the old name.

Customers outside the EU may have their queries processed in the US, EU, or other regions.

Note: The same page says "Microsoft Copilot calls to the LLM are routed to the closest data centers in the region, but also can call into other regions where capacity is available during high utilization periods." In-country AI processing for Australia is announced but not yet available: Microsoft 365 roadmap item 571886 "Local inferencing" (launching in Australia, India, the UAE, the UK and the US) is "In development" with GA "December CY2026". Microsoft's 3 April 2026 blog update says it is "expected to become available in Australia ... by the end of 2026", replacing the original November 2025 promise of end-2025. Recheck after December 2026.

The vendor does not publish a statement on this.

Note: Microsoft does not say where support engineers access Copilot data from. The Customer Lockbox page says "all Microsoft 365 Copilot interactions are covered by Customer Lockbox through the support available for Exchange Online", so when Customer Lockbox is turned on, engineer access to content needs the customer's approval. That covers approval, not location.

Microsoft Copilot is available with Microsoft 365 E7 or as an add-on for eligible commercial, US Government, and education subscription plans.

Note: Copilot itself is a paid licence (E7, the Copilot add-on, or Copilot Business for up to 300 users). The Australian storage commitment is not an extra charge: the Product Terms page says "These commitments are available at no additional cost." Advanced Data Residency and Multi-Geo are optional paid add-ons that extend coverage; ADR must cover 100% of paid licences in the tenant. Copilot Chat (no Copilot licence) is also covered by the Product Terms storage commitment. No plan or add-on gives Australian AI processing today; local inferencing in Australia is on the roadmap (item 571886, GA December CY2026).

Anthropic models deployed in Microsoft offerings such as Microsoft Copilot, Researcher, Copilot Studio, Power Platform, and Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps are currently excluded from the EU Data Boundary, and when applicable, in-country processing commitments.

Note: Anthropic models are on by default for commercial tenants outside the EU, EFTA and UK, so this applies to Australian tenants unless an admin turns Anthropic off. "Anthropic models with Data Retention" are off by default; if enabled, Anthropic stores data under its own terms, outside Microsoft's Product Terms and DPA. Web search: queries sent to Bing are handled with Microsoft as controller, and the web search page says "The Microsoft Products and Services Data Protection Addendum (DPA) doesn't apply to the use of generated web search queries"; web search is on unless an admin turns it off. Agents and connectors: Microsoft says to check each agent's own privacy statement and terms. Cowork workspace files and custom skills follow the SharePoint/OneDrive residency terms.

An Australian Government Protected Infosec Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) assessment of Microsoft 365 with Microsoft Copilot is in the scope of assessed services and is available at Microsoft Service Trust Portal.

Note: Marked unclear: Microsoft's ANZ Copilot blueprint page (quoted) says Copilot is in the scope of the Microsoft 365 IRAP assessment, and that Copilot Chat "is also covered by the same IRAP assessment", but the IRAP report itself was not readable (it sits behind a Service Trust Portal sign-in), so the exact Copilot scope and assessment date are not confirmed. Microsoft published its 2026 IRAP assessments of Microsoft 365 (assessor Neon Cloud, up to PROTECTED) on 26 March 2026. Microsoft's separate IRAP compliance-offering page lists Office 365 in-scope services without naming Copilot.