Microsoft first began rolling out Copilot connectors to Windows Insiders in October 2025, positioning them as a way to let the AI assistant search across personal services like OneDrive, Outlook, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts using natural language.These connectors are meant to give more contextual information to Copilot through various services, even third-party ones. Once enabled, Copilot can pull context from linked accounts to answer questions, locate files, find emails, or reference calendar items without you manually switching apps.The Google Contacts connector, specifically, allows Copilot to retrieve saved contact details like phone numbers and email addresses directly from your Google account.However, Google Contacts took its sweet time to be generally available to the public, but has now rolled out to everyone using Copilot web and the Copilot Android app. Some users have also received it in the standalone Copilot Windows app, but unfortunately, it’s not available in mine.Connectors in Copilot Android app and Copilot WebBut I did get the connector for Google Contacts in both my Copilot Android app and web version, and curiosity got the best of me. I decided to enable it and see how well it actually works. To make things interesting, I also compared it with Google’s Gemini.How to link Google Contacts to Microsoft CopilotThere are three ways to enable the Google Contacts connector in Copilot. I’ll tell the fancy one first:Open a chat in Copilot web and literally ask it to check Google Contacts and tell the phone number of someone from your Google contact list.Copilot asking to connect to Google ContactsCopilot will then tell you that it needs your consent to access Google Contacts. You can click the “Connect” button here, and Copilot will prompt you again, with the benefits and reassurances. Interestingly, Copilot allows you to connect to any Google account that you have, and it doesn’t have to be the one you’ve signed in with. Click the “Continue to Google Contacts” button to proceed.You’ll then see the familiar “Sign in with Google” page. Since I have already enabled other Google connectors like Drive, Gmail, and Calendar, it shows Copilot needs “additional access” to my Google account.Permissions asked while connecting Google Contacts to CopilotThis window also shows what permissions we have to give to Copilot, and unsurprisingly, giving access to Google Contacts will give Copilot the permission to not just see, but also download our contacts, which means that it would be up in Microsoft’s Cloud.Click “Continue” and you’ll be back in the Copilot chat interface.The second method is to enable the Google Contacts connector near the text field in Copilot. Click the connector icon and enable Google Contacts. You’ll get the same options to sign in with Google and give permissions to Copilot.How to enable Google Contacts Connector in Copilot chat interfaceYou can also enable Google Contacts connector from Copilot settings. Click your profile, select Settings, choose Connectors and then enable the toggle for Google Contacts.How to enable Google Contacts connector in Copilot SettingsFor each connector from Google, you’ll have to sign in separately with Google. As of writing, only the Copilot web has got access to Google Contacts. The standalone Copilot app will gradually get it, though.Testing Google Contacts connector in Microsoft CopilotMicrosoft’s official support document notes that you can only retrieve contact information using connectors, such as “What is John’s email address?”That’s it. You cannot create new contacts or edit existing contacts. You can’t even ask Copilot to send a text message to a particular Google Contact.About a year ago, the Copilot app got Phone Connection, with which you could set alarms and timers, and view and send text messages. That is a completely different feature that connects Copilot with Phone Link, but in our testing during that time, it was a bit finicky and not everything worked as expected.Asking Copilot to show messagesHowever, Copilot was able to fetch the phone number correctly using Phone Connection.Asking Copilot for contact infoThis was before connectors. Doing the same now would show the contact info of the person from Outlook, since I have already synced my contacts to Outlook/OneDrive, and the Connection too is enabled.Asking for a contact’s phone number directly without specifying Google ContactsNow let’s see if the connectors for Google Contacts work as expected, because not all people enabled Phone Connection, and not everyone syncs their contacts with OneDrive. People with Android smartphones already have their contacts synced with Google.Earlier, I asked Copilot to fetch me Mayank’s phone number from Google Contacts, which was when it asked me to give permission. After enabling all permissions, I tried again, but Copilot was unable to fetch the number, saying that there was no entry under the same name.Copilot couldn’t fetch the phone number of a contact that I already have in Google ContactsThen I tried another contact, and Copilot gave me the right response, which prompted me to prompt (pun intended) to fetch another contact’s number, and Copilot worked here as well. It even got the pronouns right, which I have no idea how it did.Copilot accurately fetched the phone numbers of contacts from Google ContactsI again asked Copilot to fetch a fourth contact and a fifth contact. One worked while the other didn’t.Copilot fetches phone numbers for some contacts but doesn’t for othersBut this time, I understood why Copilot was unable to show the phone numbers of some contacts. For some reason, Copilot can show a contact’s phone number only if that person’s email ID is added in the contact info. The first contact’s phone number I asked for was Mayank, and his email ID wasn’t added to the contact info that I saved in Google Contacts. I tried the prompt again after adding his email ID and guess what…Copilot shows the phone number of a Google contact only if their email ID is already added in the contact infoAfter adding his email ID, Copilot shows phone number and email ID, with a Google logo, confirming that the info was indeed taken from Google Contacts.I confirmed it with a few other contacts as well. Copilot shows the phone number only if they have email IDs stored in the contact details. Although I couldn’t find an official explanation for this odd behaviour, my theory is that Microsoft did this for privacy reasons (remember this, as it would come in handy in just a few moments).Comparing Copilot Connectors with Google GeminiWhile Microsoft’s Copilot has its connectors, Google’s Gemini has Connected Apps, and if social media is proof of anything, it’s that Copilot is far behind when compared with Gemini. However, it was Microsoft that started early in the AI race to make an “Agentic OS” and this head start has definitely got some upsides to it, despite the general public despising the company’s AI efforts.Gemini is truly a more advanced AI model when compared, and there is no doubt about it, but it isn’t as good as Copilot when it comes to a simple task of fetching a contact’s phone number or even sending them an email.For context, I have a Gemini PRO subscription, and its Connected Apps toggle is already turned on for Google Workspace, which includes Gmail, Google Drive, and the lot.Gemini PRO subscription with Connected Apps enabledAs for Copilot, I am not a paid subscriber, for obvious reasons, and it’s on the free tier.I asked the same prompt I gave to Copilot, hoping that Gemini would easily fetch Mayank’s phone number, considering that Google Contacts belongs to Google, and that I also added Mayank’s email ID to Google Contacts.Google Gemini cannot retrieve a contact’s phone number saved in Google ContactsHowever, I was surprised to see that Gemini was unable to retrieve his phone number. To be fair to Google, their Workspace doesn’t explicitly say anything about including “Google Contacts”. But I digress, as both of these are Google products, and I was half expecting Gemini to say something like “this is Mayank’s phone number, do you want me to send a text message?”Of course, Copilot can’t send a text directly, and it can only retrieve phone numbers and email IDs. However, it does have the ability to draft an email and, with one click, open Outlook to send an email.Copilot drafts an email and gives a direct link to open Outlook to send the emailNaturally, one would expect Gemini to do even better, considering it already connects to Gmail and that it is a PRO subscription. Also, note that I have already sent an email to Mayank from Gmail, so retrieving it could be a piece of cake for Gemini, but I was wrong.Gemini doesn’t offer a direct link to open Gmail to send an emailGemini, despite having direct access to the Gmail workspace, was unable to give me a link that would automatically add the subject and body. In fact, it didn’t give any link at all. And I can’t be fair with Google here, because at first it wasn’t even capable of finding Mayank’s email ID.Gemini was unable to retrieve the email ID of a contact saved in Google ContactsIt was only after I sent an email to Mayank in Gmail that Gemini was able to fetch his email. Still, it was unable to find the phone number or give me an easy link to send him an email.Copilot, despite being in the free tier, was able to use its connectors to find phone numbers and email addresses and also craft an email with a link that directly opened Outlook with the subject and body already intact. Isn’t this what AI is supposed to do?Don’t get me wrong, I’m not praising Microsoft for all the AI that they have poured over in Windows 11, but credit where it’s due, the company’s head start in AI and aggressive push towards an Agentic OS did bring about a system that behaves more like an agentic AI and not a mere large language model.That being said, I’m also aware of the agentic features coming to Android soon, but Copilot isn’t far either, as Microsoft announced Copilot Tasks, which is a proper agentic mode that interprets your prompts and makes them into step-by-step tasks and executes them in the background.https://www.windowslatest.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/A-New-Approach-to-Productivity-Meet-Copilot-Tasks-1920x1080-avc1-mp4a.mp4Copilot Tasks demoSure, the hate around Copilot is understandable considering how aggressive Microsoft was with the branding, and throwing away every bit of logic to slap the Copilot name and logo throughout Windows. But in the end, an AI assistant is only as useful as the amount of data about us that it has. In that case, Copilot comes on top, even above Gemini.The privacy-conscious people wouldn’t go anywhere near Copilot, but what they fail to realise is that Agentic features, even the ones coming to Android, iOS, and macOS, all require explicit access to your data.Google Contacts Connector page in CopilotNevertheless, if you do not want multi-trillion-dollar companies to tell your contact information, you can always turn it off. And Copilot connectors, too, are just a toggle away.The post Tested: Microsoft Copilot can now access your Google Contacts, and it’s better than Gemini integration appeared first on Windows Latest