What is the difference between Copilot Notebooks and ChatGPT Projects?

Copilot Notebooks answers only from the Microsoft 365 files, emails, meetings and links you add, and those references stay current. ChatGPT Projects uses uploaded or connected sources alongside the model’s own knowledge and the web, and members of a shared project see each other’s chats.

Is Microsoft 365 Copilot Notebooks the same as Microsoft Copilot Notebooks?

Yes. Microsoft renamed Microsoft 365 Copilot to Microsoft Copilot, and its help pages now call the feature Microsoft Copilot Notebooks. Some pages, addresses and licenses still use the older name during the transition.

Can people see my chats in a shared Copilot notebook?

No. Microsoft says your conversations with Copilot remain private even when you share a notebook. Everyone you invite gets editing access to the notebook, and sharing can also give them access to the files in it.

Which is better for a team, Copilot Notebooks or Claude Projects?

Copilot Notebooks suits a Microsoft 365 team whose material lives in SharePoint, Outlook and Teams and needs answers grounded only in it. Claude Projects suits a team that wants the model to draft and reason from a shared knowledge base, with view-only members possible on Team and Enterprise plans.

Copilot Notebooks vs ChatGPT Projects vs Claude Projects

Three AI workspaces that keep your files and chats for one piece of work together. Microsoft Copilot Notebooks answers only from what you add; ChatGPT and Claude Projects add the model’s own knowledge. How they compare on sources, grounding, sharing and accounts.

September 30, 20267 min read

Microsoft Copilot Notebooks, ChatGPT Projects and Claude Projects all gather the files, instructions and conversations for one piece of work in one place. The deciding difference is grounding. Copilot Notebooks answers only from the references you add, and those references are live Microsoft 365 files, emails and meetings that update as the work changes. ChatGPT Projects and Claude Projects treat your files as context alongside the model’s own knowledge, which makes them better for drafting and reasoning and worse when every answer must trace back to a document. Sharing is the second difference: ChatGPT shares a project’s chats with its members, while Copilot Notebooks and Claude keep each person’s chats private. This comparison reflects each vendor’s help pages as of September 30, 2026.

A note on names

Microsoft has been renaming. Its page on enterprise data protection (opens in a new tab) says Microsoft 365 Copilot is now named Microsoft Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is now Microsoft Copilot Chat, with some licenses and screens still using the old names during the transition. The notebooks followed: Microsoft’s help pages now say Microsoft Copilot Notebooks, while their web addresses still say microsoft-365-copilot-notebooks. It is one product, and this post uses Copilot Notebooks for short.

At a glance

Grounding: Copilot Notebooks answers from your references only. ChatGPT and Claude use your files plus the model’s knowledge, and ChatGPT can also search the web in a project.
Sources: Copilot Notebooks takes Microsoft 365 files, OneNote pages, Loop and Copilot pages, web links, Outlook emails, Teams meetings and SharePoint sites and folders. ChatGPT takes uploads and connected sources such as Google Drive and Slack. Claude takes uploaded documents, text and code.
Chats when shared: private in Copilot Notebooks and Claude; visible to members in ChatGPT.
Sharing rights: edit only in Copilot Notebooks; Can view or Can edit in Claude; chat or edit access in ChatGPT.
Accounts: Copilot Notebooks needs a Microsoft Copilot or Copilot Chat license, or a Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, Premium or Pro subscription. Claude Projects are on every Claude plan, with sharing on Team and Enterprise. ChatGPT Projects, including sharing, are on individual and business plans.

Microsoft Copilot Notebooks: grounded in your Microsoft 365 work

Microsoft’s page on how Copilot Notebooks works (opens in a new tab) is explicit: Copilot uses only the references you add to the notebook, not your whole OneDrive, email, Teams or the web, and references update as the project changes. That is the feature the other two do not have. A notebook built from a SharePoint folder, last week’s client meeting and a thread of emails stays current without anyone uploading a new copy.

Limits depend on the license. Microsoft’s page on getting answers from a notebook (opens in a new tab) says Copilot Chat users can add up to 50 references, all used for grounding, and web links are the only non-file entity they can add; Microsoft Copilot users can add more than 300, including emails, meetings and SharePoint sites. Microsoft’s pages describe the cutoff differently: one says the first 300 references are used, another says that for a folder or site Copilot picks up to 300 files most relevant to your prompt. If a particular file must count, add it directly.

Outputs: chat with custom instructions, an audio overview, mind maps and infographics. The How it works page still lists no image generation or data visualizations as a limitation, while a separate Microsoft page documents infographics, so expect that list to move.
Where it opens: the Microsoft Copilot app, and a fuller workspace in OneNote. The same notebook opens in both.
Storage: in a personal SharePoint Embedded container belonging to the creator.

Sharing is where it is strictest. Microsoft’s Copilot Notebooks FAQ (opens in a new tab) says everyone you invite gets editing access, view-only is not supported yet, you add individuals rather than groups, and sharing a notebook can also give people access to the files in it. Your conversations with Copilot stay private even in a shared notebook, and so do infographics you create.

ChatGPT Projects: shared conversations

OpenAI’s guide to projects and chats (opens in a new tab) describes a project as a place for related chats, files, instructions and sources, for work that continues over time or depends on the same files. Each project has a Chats section and a Sources section, and project instructions apply across its chats, whether they were started with Chat or ChatGPT Work. OpenAI notes that a ChatGPT project does not reach folders on your computer, so you upload or connect what you want it to use.

What sets it apart is that the chats are shared. Members of a shared project see and continue each other’s conversations, sharing is offered on Free, Go, Plus and Pro as well as business plans, and shared projects always use project-only memory. That makes a ChatGPT project closer to a team room than a reference shelf, and it means anything typed there is visible to its members. The detail is in Claude Projects vs ChatGPT Projects and how ChatGPT project memory works.

Claude Projects: a knowledge base for ongoing work

Anthropic’s page What are projects? (opens in a new tab) describes projects as self-contained workspaces with their own chat histories and knowledge bases. You upload documents to the project’s knowledge and set instructions, and Claude uses both in every chat. Free accounts can create up to five projects; on paid plans, Claude switches to retrieval as knowledge nears the context limit, which Anthropic says expands capacity up to ten times. On Team and Enterprise, projects can be shared with specific people or the whole organization, with Can view or Can edit.

The files are copies, so when the original changes you replace it. In return, Claude brings its own reasoning to them, which suits drafting a proposal from last quarter’s research or reviewing a contract against a checklist. Sharing and its limits are covered in can Claude Projects be shared?

Which one for which job

Your material is in Outlook, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive, and answers must come only from it: Copilot Notebooks.
A client folder that keeps changing, where nobody wants to re-upload files: Copilot Notebooks, since references stay live.
A small group, not necessarily in one company, who want to work in the same conversations: ChatGPT Projects.
A body of reference material each person queries in their own chats, with the model drafting and reasoning: Claude Projects on a Team or Enterprise plan.
Readers who must not change anything: Claude, with Can view, or ChatGPT, with chat access. Copilot Notebooks gives everyone editing rights for now.
A study set with audio overviews and quizzes: none of these three leads; see NotebookLM alternatives for where Gemini Notebook fits.

What none of the three tracks

All three hold material and answer questions about it. None records the work that comes out of those answers: which follow-ups are open, who picked one up, and whether it is done. Ask for that list in a form you can move somewhere shared:

A prompt that works in all three

From the material in this workspace, list every follow-up we need to act on.
One per line, starting with a verb, under 12 words.
Start each line with feature, enhancement or bug.
After each line, name the source file in parentheses.
Leave out anything the sources do not support.

On fenbs, paste that list into Add many and each line becomes a task of that kind, moving through To Do, Next Up, In Progress and Completed. Put the source in the task’s note, since the note holds the problem and the plan holds how it will be done. Claude and ChatGPT can then work the same board over MCP, through the Claude connector or ChatGPT, each as a member with a role and each change recorded in History under its name. A notebook grounds only on the references you add, so for Copilot the pasted list is the bridge. fenbs has no due dates or settable assignee, so dates and owners go in the note.

Microsoft’s wider toolkit: Microsoft 365 Copilot for project management. Head to head on the other two: Claude Projects vs ChatGPT Projects. Teams using Claude’s projects: Claude Projects for teams.