---
title: "Augure vs Microsoft 365 Copilot: tenant residency versus sovereign inference"
description: "For Canadian organisations weighing Microsoft 365 Copilot against Augure: where prompts are stored and processed, subprocessors, CAD prices, migration guide."
competitor: "Microsoft 365 Copilot"
vendor: "Microsoft"
category: "chat"
canonical: "https://augureai.ca/compare/microsoft-copilot"
updated: "2026-10-27"
summary: "Microsoft 365 Copilot stores a Canadian tenant's Copilot interactions at rest in Canada but, per Microsoft's documentation, may process queries in the US, EU or other regions; Augure stores customer data in Canada and never routes inference to US providers, while Copilot keeps the deeper Microsoft 365 integration."
faqs:
  - q: "Is there a Canadian alternative to Microsoft 365 Copilot?"
    a: "Augure is a Canadian company with no US parent or investors. Customer data is stored in Canada, inference runs on Canadian infrastructure and with vetted EU partners under zero-data-retention agreements, and it is never routed to providers in the United States. Chat plans are billed in CAD from C$0 to C$80 per month, with Enterprise custom. It does not replace Copilot inside Word, Excel or Teams."
  - q: "Does Microsoft 365 Copilot keep my data in Canada?"
    a: "Per Microsoft's documentation as of October 2026, the content of Copilot interactions is stored at rest in the tenant's geography, and Canada is an eligible geography under the Product Terms. For processing, Microsoft says Copilot routes LLM calls to the closest datacentres but can call other regions, and customers outside the EU may have queries processed in the US, EU or other regions. Anthropic and OpenAI-operated models are excluded from in-country processing commitments."
  - q: "Can I use Augure and Microsoft 365 Copilot together?"
    a: "Yes. Many organisations keep Copilot for drafting and meeting summaries inside Microsoft 365 and use Augure for work where inference location matters. Augure's desktop app includes Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace integration, and the chat app accepts uploaded documents. Chat history and Copilot agents do not move between the two."
---

# Augure vs Microsoft 365 Copilot: tenant residency versus sovereign inference

Microsoft 365 Copilot (now being renamed Microsoft Copilot) is the AI layer inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, grounded in your tenant's data through Microsoft Graph. Augure is a sovereign AI platform for Canadian organisations: chat, knowledge base, a desktop agent and an OpenAI-compatible API, with customer data stored in Canada. The biggest difference is processing location. Microsoft commits to storing a Canadian tenant's Copilot interactions in Canada, but says queries from customers outside the EU may be processed in the US, EU or other regions. Augure never routes inference to US providers. Read this if you are a privacy officer, CIO or managing partner deciding whether Copilot's integration outweighs a Canadian processing requirement.

## At a glance

| | Augure | Microsoft 365 Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Company and jurisdiction | Canadian company, no US parent or investors. | Microsoft, a US company. |
| Where customer data is stored | Canada. | Content of Copilot interactions is stored at rest in the tenant's geography. Canada is eligible under the Product Terms at no extra cost, and under the paid Advanced Data Residency add-on. |
| Where inference runs | Canadian infrastructure (Ontario) and vetted EU partners under zero-data-retention; never US providers. | Per Microsoft's documentation (October 2026), LLM calls go to the closest datacentres but can call other regions under load. Customers outside the EU may have queries processed in the US, EU or other regions. EU tenants stay within the EU Data Boundary. |
| Models behind the product | Augure models: ossington-5, rosedale-1, tofino-3 and others. | Azure OpenAI models operated by Microsoft, plus OpenAI-operated and Anthropic models as Microsoft subprocessors. Admins can turn the subprocessor models off. |
| Your data used for training | Never. | Prompts, responses and Graph data are not used to train foundation LLMs, per Microsoft. |
| Canadian residency option | Storage always in Canada. Accounts can be set Canada-only: requests then stay in Canada or fail with `503 residency_unavailable`, never served elsewhere. tofino-3 and the Augure Open models never leave Canada. | Data at rest in Canada for eligible tenants. Anthropic and OpenAI-operated models are excluded from in-country processing commitments. As of October 2026, Microsoft's documentation does not describe a Canada-only processing option. |
| API | OpenAI-compatible, https://api.augureai.ca/v1 | Agents are built in Copilot Studio; no developer API is described on the pages cited. |
| Microsoft 365 integration | Desktop app with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace integration. | Native in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Teams and Forms, grounded in Microsoft Graph. |
| Languages | English and Quebec French natively. | Multilingual; no published statement on Quebec French. |
| Billing currency | CAD. | CAD on Microsoft's Canadian pricing page. Copilot Business add-on C$28.50 per user per month annual (C$24.43 promotional to 2026-12-31), C$34.20 monthly, plus an eligible Microsoft 365 plan. |
| Certifications published | SOC 2 and ISO 27001 in progress (readiness underway with Vanta, per https://augureai.ca/security). TLS 1.3 in transit, AES-256 at rest. | GDPR, ISO 27001, HIPAA and ISO 42001 listed for Copilot. |
| Best fit | Canadian organisations where inference location decides the purchase, or bilingual work. | Organisations that live in Microsoft 365 and accept Microsoft's processing regions. |

## Where Microsoft 365 Copilot wins

- Integration. Copilot drafts in Word, builds formulas in Excel, summarises Outlook threads and transcribes Teams meetings, all grounded in your emails, files and calendar through Microsoft Graph. Augure's chat and desktop app do not sit inside those apps.
- Permission inheritance. Copilot surfaces only content the user can already open, using the SharePoint and Graph permission model you already maintain. Augure's Knowledge has its own access controls, which you configure separately.
- Governance tooling. Admins search, retain and export Copilot interactions with Content search, Microsoft Purview and the Teams Export APIs. Purview sensitivity labels are honoured in responses.
- Agent building. Copilot Studio is a low-code studio for agents and workflows, and a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence lets you build agents on it. Some agent usage inside Copilot, Teams and SharePoint is zero-rated.
- Residency at rest included. For a tenant with a Canadian default geography, Copilot interaction content is stored in Canada under the Product Terms at no extra cost, with Advanced Data Residency as a paid extension.

## Where Augure wins

- Inference location. Augure runs inference on Canadian infrastructure and with vetted EU partners under zero-data-retention agreements, and never routes it to providers in the United States. Microsoft states that non-EU queries may be processed in the US, EU or other regions.
- Fewer parties. Copilot responses may come from Microsoft-operated Azure OpenAI models or from OpenAI and Anthropic acting as Microsoft subprocessors, and those subprocessor models sit outside in-country processing commitments. Augure's models run on Canadian infrastructure and with vetted EU partners, and every API response names the processing region.
- A hard Canada-only switch. A Canada-only Augure account fails a request with `503 residency_unavailable` rather than serving it elsewhere.
- Jurisdiction, scoped to customer content. Augure has no US corporate parent and no US investors. Customer conversations, documents and AI inference are never handled by US-jurisdiction providers, so the CLOUD Act's reach over US-controlled providers does not extend to customer content. Limited US processing exists for payment card networks and email delivery only, documented in the privacy policy.
- Quebec French as a native language of the models and the apps, and CAD plans from C$0, with Pro at C$20 per month against a Copilot add-on that starts at C$28.50 list on top of a Microsoft 365 licence.
- A developer surface. The OpenAI-compatible API, the MCP server and Augure Code let you build on the same Canadian inference the chat app uses.

## Switch from Microsoft 365 Copilot to Augure

This is a chat migration, and it is partial by nature. Augure replaces Copilot Chat and document work; it does not replace Copilot inside Word or Teams.

1. Export what you need. Copilot activity history lives in Microsoft 365. Admins can retrieve it with Content search, Microsoft Purview or the Teams Export APIs, and users can delete their own history from the My Account portal. Microsoft documents this retrieval for compliance, not as a migration export, so treat it as a record.
2. Create an Augure account at https://chat.augureai.ca. Free gives you ossington-5 with a daily limit; Pro removes message limits and allows 100 document uploads a month; Max adds unlimited documents and deep research agents.
3. What carries over: the documents themselves. Download from SharePoint or OneDrive and upload them to Augure chat or Knowledge (5 sources at a time on Free and Pro, 15 on Max). Recreate recurring prompts as projects. Augure's desktop app includes Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace integration for working with those files.
4. What does not: chat history, Copilot in the Office apps, Teams meeting summaries, Graph grounding across your mailbox, Copilot Studio agents and Purview retention of AI interactions. If those are daily habits, keep the Copilot licences for them.
5. For SSO, dedicated support and custom compliance documentation, write to enterprise@augureai.ca.
6. Run both for two weeks with one team. Route the work where inference location matters, such as client files, privileged documents and bilingual drafting, to Augure. Keep Copilot for in-app tasks and measure where each one is used.

## Keep Microsoft 365 Copilot if

- Your value comes from Copilot inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams, and from Graph grounding across the tenant.
- Your residency requirement is met by data at rest in Canada, and your privacy office accepts processing in the US, EU or other regions.
- Your compliance programme is built on Purview retention, eDiscovery and sensitivity labels.
- You are building agents in Copilot Studio on the Microsoft 365 Copilot licence.

## Sources

- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/microsoft-365/microsoft-365-copilot-privacy (checked 2026-10-27, dated 2026-07-09): rename to Microsoft Copilot; not used to train foundation LLMs; LLM calls routed to closest datacentres but can call other regions; non-EU queries may be processed in the US, EU or other regions; EU Data Boundary; Anthropic and OpenAI as subprocessors; Content search, Purview, Teams Export APIs, My Account deletion; GDPR, ISO 27001, HIPAA, ISO 42001.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/m365-dr-product-terms-dr?view=o365-worldwide (checked 2026-10-27, dated 2026-10-08): Canada among eligible default geographies; Microsoft 365 Copilot added to Product Terms 2024-03-01 and Copilot Chat 2025-09-01; stored content of Copilot interactions kept at rest in the Geo; no additional cost.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/m365-dr-workload-copilot?view=o365-worldwide (checked 2026-10-27, dated 2026-10-08): Copilot and Copilot Chat residency with no modifications; Cowork interaction content at rest for tenants in Canada and other listed countries.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/m365-dr-adr-overview (checked 2026-10-27, dated 2026-10-08): Advanced Data Residency covers Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat; Canada eligible; 100% of paid licences must be covered.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/microsoft-365/ai-models-overview (checked 2026-10-27, dated 2026-09-10): Azure OpenAI models hosted and operated by Microsoft; AI subprocessors.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/microsoft-365/connect-to-ai-subprocessor (checked 2026-10-27, dated 2026-09-18): Anthropic models on by default in commercial cloud outside EU/EFTA/UK; excluded from the EU Data Boundary and in-country processing commitments; admin opt-out.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/microsoft-365/openai-subprocessor (checked 2026-10-27, dated 2026-10-23): OpenAI-operated models enabled by default for eligible commercial customers from 2026-07-24; excluded from in-country processing commitments; Azure OpenAI models unaffected.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/privacy/eudb/eu-data-boundary-learn (checked 2026-10-27, dated 2026-07-21): EU Data Boundary definition and Microsoft 365 scope.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/microsoft-365/microsoft-365-copilot-overview (checked 2026-10-27, dated 2026-10-23): Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Teams and Forms; Graph grounding; Copilot Chat included with eligible plans; model selector; Purview.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/fundamentals-what-is-copilot-studio (checked 2026-10-27, dated 2026-09-25): Copilot Studio as a low-code studio for agents and workflows.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/billing-licensing (checked 2026-10-27, dated 2026-08-03): Copilot Credits; a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence lets you build agents; zero-rated usage in Copilot, Teams and SharePoint.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/microsoft-365/microsoft-365-copilot-licensing (checked 2026-10-27, dated 2026-10-19): add-on licensing, eligible plans, Copilot Business up to 300 users with annual commitment, included in Microsoft 365 E7.
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/microsoft-365-copilot/pricing (checked 2026-10-27): Copilot Business add-on CAD $28.50 annual list, CAD $24.43 promotional from 2026-07-01 to 2026-12-31 for the first year, CAD $34.20 monthly; bundles CAD $43.40 and CAD $31.90.
- https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/07/18/furthering-our-ai-ambitions-announcing-bing-chat-enterprise-and-microsoft-365-copilot-pricing/ (checked 2026-10-27, dated 2023-07-18): enterprise add-on announced at US$30 per user per month for E3, E5, Business Standard and Business Premium.
- https://augureai.ca/llms.txt, https://augureai.ca/docs/api, https://augureai.ca/docs/models, https://augureai.ca/docs/agents (checked 2026-10-27): all Augure facts, prices in CAD and model ids.