Brainstorming with Copilot Chat

Overview

Brainstorming alone is hard. You stare at a blank page, struggle to generate alternatives, and get stuck in your own perspective. Copilot Chat acts as a thought partner—it generates ideas, challenges your thinking, explores alternatives, and helps you organize output into something actionable.

This video shows you how to frame effective brainstorming requests, generate and refine ideas through iterative conversation, and turn raw brainstorming output into structured plans.

What You’ll Learn

• Framing Requests: How to set up brainstorming prompts that produce useful results
• Generating Ideas: Using Copilot to explore multiple perspectives and alternatives
• Refining Concepts: Iterating through follow-up prompts to narrow and deepen
• Organizing Output: Turning ideas into prioritized lists, tables, and action plans

Script

Hook: moving from blank page to breakthrough

Brainstorming alone means staring at a blank page. Your brain serves up the same three ideas it always does, and you wonder if there’s a better approach you haven’t considered.

Copilot Chat gives you a thought partner. Whether you’re exploring a new project, solving a problem, generating communication angles, or planning an event, Copilot can help you move from zero ideas to a structured list in minutes.

This video shows you how to use it effectively.

Framing effective brainstorming requests

The quality of your brainstorming output depends on how you frame the request. Three elements make the difference.

Start with context. Tell Copilot who you are and what you’re working on. “I’m a program manager planning a stakeholder engagement strategy for a new IT modernization initiative.” Context helps Copilot generate relevant ideas instead of generic suggestions.

State what you’re trying to accomplish. “I need five different approaches to engage skeptical stakeholders who’ve been burned by past IT projects.” The goal directs the brainstorming toward useful territory.

Include constraints and requirements. “The approaches need to work within a government agency setting with limited budget for external events.” Constraints actually improve creative output—they force Copilot to think within realistic boundaries.

Here are two examples of effective brainstorming prompts. “I need to plan a team offsite for 20 people. Suggest 5 activities that encourage collaboration and fit a government workplace.” Or: “I’m writing a policy brief on telework. What are 3 different angles I could take?” Both are specific enough to guide direction but open enough to allow creativity.

Generating and refining ideas with Copilot

Start broad. Ask for multiple alternatives without filtering too early. “Give me 8 different approaches to improve our onboarding process.” “What are 6 ways we could communicate this policy change?” Starting with a larger number gives you more raw material to work with.

Request different perspectives. “Now suggest approaches from the employee’s perspective, not the manager’s.” “What would a change management expert recommend here?” Shifting perspectives often produces the most surprising and valuable ideas.

Then refine through follow-up prompts. This is where iterative conversation shines. Pick the ideas that resonate and go deeper. “Expand on option 3—what would implementation look like?” “What are the pros and cons of each approach?” “Which of these would work best for a risk-averse organization?” Copilot remembers the full conversation, so each follow-up builds naturally on what came before.

Use “What if” questions to explore edges. “What if we had twice the budget?” “What if we needed to complete this in half the time?” “What if the primary audience was technical instead of executive?” These hypotheticals often reveal ideas that work even within your actual constraints.

A key tip: ask Copilot to challenge your assumptions. “I’m assuming we need an in-person event. Push back on that—what are the best virtual alternatives?” Deliberately inviting pushback produces ideas you wouldn’t generate on your own.

Building on and organizing output

Raw brainstorming output is just a starting point. The real value comes from organizing it into something actionable.

Ask Copilot to structure the ideas. “Organize these ideas into a prioritized list based on impact and feasibility.” “Create a table comparing these options across cost, timeline, and risk.” “Draft an outline based on these concepts.” These organizational prompts transform a list of ideas into a framework for decision-making.

Extract next steps. “What would I need to research to evaluate these options?” “Turn this into a task list with estimated effort.” “What are the first three things I should do to pursue the top option?” Moving from ideas to actions is where brainstorming produces real outcomes.

Export and use the results. Copy the output into Word for further development, into OneNote for reference, or into Teams for collaborative discussion. Use the brainstorming output as a starting point for team conversations—it’s easier to react to and improve existing ideas than to generate them from scratch in a group meeting.

One important note: Copilot won’t make strategic decisions for you. It generates options, perspectives, and analysis. You evaluate, decide, and own the outcome. It also doesn’t have access to your organization’s specific context unless you provide it. The more organizational context you include in your prompts, the more relevant the ideas.

Close: practical patterns for recurring brainstorming

Build reusable prompt patterns for your most common brainstorming needs. If you regularly plan projects, create a go-to prompt template: “I’m planning [project type]. Suggest [number] approaches for [specific challenge], considering [constraints].”

Common brainstorming scenarios that work well with Copilot: project planning and scoping, content ideation and messaging angles, problem-solving and troubleshooting approaches, meeting agenda development, and stakeholder engagement strategies.

The more context you give, the better the results. Start with Copilot Chat today—pick a real problem you’re working on, describe it clearly, and see what ideas emerge.

Sources & References

• Explore Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat — Training path for brainstorming techniques
• Copilot Prompt Gallery — Scenario-based prompt examples for ideation
• Craft effective prompts for Copilot — Prompting techniques for better results