Microsoft clearly sees Copilot, its umbrella brand for AI-powered, content-generating tools, as a major income stream. The business said that over 40% of the Fortune 100 engaged in its Copilot early access program.
However, running GenAI models on the cloud is expensive, so Copilot will need sustained, large-scale growth to become a revenue source.
Knowing this, Microsoft is releasing a consumer-focused paid Copilot plan and lowering enterprise-level Copilot eligibility rules today. The idea seems to be to expand Copilot’s client base while making Microsoft’s Word, Excel, and other Microsoft 365 programs more appealing via AI capabilities.
Copilot Pro, the new $20-per-user-per-month consumer package, allows Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plan users access to Copilot GenAI capabilities in Word, Excel (in preview, just in English for now), PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote on PC, Mac, and iPad. Copilot Pro isn’t included with Microsoft 365. Like Copilot for Microsoft 365, it’s a paid add-on that raises the lowest-tier Microsoft 365 membership to $27 per month ($6.99 for Microsoft 365 Personal and $20 for Copilot Pro).
Copilot Pro includes Microsoft 365 features that corporate users have enjoyed for a time.
Copilot writes, edits, summarizes, and creates Word and OneNote content. Excel and PowerPoint Copilot combines natural language instructions into prepared presentations and data visualizations. Copilot helps compose Outlook email answers using length and tone toggles.
In addition to Microsoft 365 updates, Copilot Pro customers receive 100 “boosts” every day in Designer (previously Bing Image Creator), Microsoft’s AI-powered image creation tool, to speed up image development and increase quality and landscape formatting. Microsoft promises superior peak-time performance with priority access to Copilot’s newest GenAI models, including OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo.
Copilot Pro customers will be able to swap between models and use Microsoft’s upcoming Copilot GPT Builder to construct “Copilots” for particular subjects from prompts.
The newly released OpenAI GPT Builder for generating bespoke chatbots using GenAI models looks eerily like Copilot GPT Builder. Copilot GPT Builder should provide Microsoft service- and app-specific connections.
Business copilot
Microsoft is expanding commercial use of Copilot as it launches a premium consumer version.
Copilot is widely available for Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Business Standard, E3 and E5, and Office 365 E3 and E5 subscribers starting today. Copilot for Microsoft 365 no longer requires a Microsoft 365 subscription or a 300-user minimum purchase.
The major difference between Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Copilot Pro is Copilot in Teams. Enterprise Copilot users, not consumers, receive a Teams “Copilot” that delivers real-time summaries and action items, such as selecting follow-up contacts and establishing meeting agendas.
Microsoft clearly sees Copilot, its umbrella brand for AI-powered, content-generating tools, as a major income stream. The business said that over 40% of the Fortune 100 engaged in its Copilot early access program.
However, running GenAI models on the cloud is expensive, so Copilot will need sustained, large-scale growth to become a revenue source.
Knowing this, Microsoft is releasing a consumer-focused paid Copilot plan and lowering enterprise-level Copilot eligibility rules today. The idea seems to be to expand Copilot’s client base while making Microsoft’s Word, Excel, and other Microsoft 365 programs more appealing via AI capabilities.
Copilot Pro, the new $20-per-user-per-month consumer package, allows Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plan users access to Copilot GenAI capabilities in Word, Excel (in preview, just in English for now), PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote on PC, Mac, and iPad. Copilot Pro isn’t included with Microsoft 365. Like Copilot for Microsoft 365, it’s a paid add-on that raises the lowest-tier Microsoft 365 membership to $27 per month ($6.99 for Microsoft 365 Personal and $20 for Copilot Pro).
Copilot Pro includes Microsoft 365 features that corporate users have enjoyed for a time.
Copilot writes, edits, summarizes, and creates Word and OneNote content. Excel and PowerPoint Copilot combines natural language instructions into prepared presentations and data visualizations. Copilot helps compose Outlook email answers using length and tone toggles.
In addition to Microsoft 365 updates, Copilot Pro customers receive 100 “boosts” every day in Designer (previously Bing Image Creator), Microsoft’s AI-powered image creation tool, to speed up image development and increase quality and landscape formatting. Microsoft promises superior peak-time performance with priority access to Copilot’s newest GenAI models, including OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo.
Copilot Pro customers will be able to swap between models and use Microsoft’s upcoming Copilot GPT Builder to construct “Copilots” for particular subjects from prompts.
The newly released OpenAI GPT Builder for generating bespoke chatbots using GenAI models looks eerily like Copilot GPT Builder. Copilot GPT Builder should provide Microsoft service- and app-specific connections.
Business copilot
Microsoft is expanding commercial use of Copilot as it launches a premium consumer version.
Copilot is widely available for Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Business Standard, E3 and E5, and Office 365 E3 and E5 subscribers starting today. Copilot for Microsoft 365 no longer requires a Microsoft 365 subscription or a 300-user minimum purchase.
The major difference between Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Copilot Pro is Copilot in Teams. Enterprise Copilot users, not consumers, receive a Teams “Copilot” that delivers real-time summaries and action items, such as selecting follow-up contacts and establishing meeting agendas.
New free features
Microsoft may be focusing on paying for Copilot plans, but it’s not forgetting free users.
Copilot GPTs, like OpenAI’s GPTs, focus on specific themes and debut today. Copilot’s online client launched a few GPTs this morning to answer fitness, vacation, and food inquiries.
Copilot’s free Android and iOS mobile app has GPT-4, DALL-E 3 for image production, the ability to utilize photos on a phone while talking with Copilot, and conversation history synchronization across mobile, PC, and the web. Microsoft is introducing Copilot to the Android and iOS Microsoft 365 mobile apps for Microsoft account holders. Over the next month, the Microsoft 365 mobile app Copilot integration will enable users to export Copilot information to Word or PDF.
Finally, Microsoft is adding languages to Copilot. Copilot will include Arabic, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, and Ukrainian in the first half of 2024.