DOCNUS vs Microsoft Copilot: document search compared

As of 14 October 2026.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is now branded "Microsoft Copilot". In this comparison we mean the work product that is licensed alongside Microsoft 365 and works across your organisation's email, chats, files and meetings. If you are looking for "Copilot for documents" or an alternative to it, the main question is whether you want an assistant across all of Microsoft 365, or a dedicated library for a set of documents that you search, check and assess for personal data. Every fact about Microsoft Copilot below links to a Microsoft page.

At a glance

Where Microsoft Copilot is stronger

If your organisation runs on Microsoft 365, Copilot is already where your work is. It lives inside Outlook, Word and Teams and works over email, chats, SharePoint and OneDrive files, calendars and meetings (Microsoft). DOCNUS only sees the documents you upload to it, and has no Microsoft 365 integration.

It uses the permissions you already have. Copilot works over the content each user can already access (Microsoft), so you do not need to set up a separate library or decide what to copy into another system. DOCNUS has three roles (owner, admin and member) within an organisation, not document-level permissions inherited from SharePoint.

It has stronger data residency options. Microsoft offers the EU Data Boundary and has announced UK in-country processing for Copilot for the end of 2026 (Microsoft). DOCNUS makes no residency claim, and some of its subprocessors process data in the US. For organisations where residency is a hard requirement, that difference may settle the question.

Where DOCNUS is different

DOCNUS is a narrower tool that does a few document tasks in depth.

• Page-level citations on every answer. Search combines meaning-based and keyword search, reranks the results, and searches again if the first pass is weak. Each answer points to the file and page so you can check it. See AI document search.
• A privacy assessment per document. On Professional and Enterprise, DOCNUS detects 50 categories of personal data and gives a verdict under EU GDPR, UK GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, a US state baseline, LGPD, PIPL and DPDP. The AI finds the facts and versioned rules in code decide the verdict, citing the articles they rely on. Values are stored masked, as explained in why we never store the value we found. It is an automated risk assessment, not legal advice, and you should review the results.
• A knowledge graph and obligations. Entities such as people, organisations and agreements are pulled from your documents, each with a profile page listing the documents that mention it. Contract renewals, notice periods and termination terms (Professional and above) and invoice due dates (every plan) are collected into a list you can export.
• Flat team pricing, no Microsoft 365 prerequisite. Professional is $149 a month for up to 15 users. Copilot is priced per user and requires a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan (pricing). DOCNUS works whatever email and office suite you use.

DOCNUS's honest limits

• Only PDF, Word and plain-text files, uploaded directly.
• No Microsoft 365 or Google Drive integration, so it does not see email, chats or meetings.
• Document and search caps on every plan.
• No SSO or SAML beyond Google and Microsoft sign-in, and no customer audit logs.
• Data is processed in the US by subprocessors.
• It is a young product with no certifications such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001.

When to choose which

Choose Microsoft Copilot if:

• you are all in on Microsoft 365 and want one assistant across email, meetings, chats and files;
• you want it to follow the permissions you have already set in SharePoint and OneDrive;
• you need EU Data Boundary processing, or UK in-country processing once available;
• your IT team wants a tool managed in the same place as the rest of Microsoft 365.

Choose DOCNUS if:

• you need to search a defined set of contracts, policies or case files and show the exact page each answer came from;
• you want to know which documents hold personal data, of what kind, and which articles of UK GDPR or other laws apply;
• you want obligations and the people and organisations in your files pulled out automatically, for example when preparing a subject access request;
• you do not use Microsoft 365, or you want a flat price for the team rather than a per-user add-on.

Using both

They can sit side by side. Copilot handles the day-to-day work across email, meetings and files. DOCNUS handles a specific library you upload for searching with page citations, privacy assessment and obligations. If you do this, you will be keeping copies of those documents in DOCNUS as well as in Microsoft 365, so decide which documents need to be there and delete them in DOCNUS when they are no longer needed. Deleting a document in DOCNUS removes its file, text, search index entries and graph data. Our security page and privacy policy set out which subprocessors we use and where.