Microsoft is launching a pay-as-you-go plan for enterprise customers that bundles some, but not all, of the existing AI-powered productivity features for Microsoft 365.
The new plan, Copilot Chat (not to be confused with Microsoft’s Copilot Business Chat or GitHub Copilot Chat), is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o AI model and allows users to ask business-related questions and automate workflows. You can build and generate images.
All of these features were part of Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft’s expansive enterprise AI add-on for Microsoft 365. However, Microsoft 365 Copilot pricing is more stringent. License fees are $30 per user per month.
“Copilot Chat adds a pay-as-you-go (service) to the existing free chat experience for Microsoft 365 commercial customers,” Microsoft said in a blog post published Wednesday. “Copilot Chat is a powerful new entry point for building AI habits for everyone in your organization.”
Copilot Chat functionality is built into the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, a rebrand of Microsoft 365 apps.
From the app, users can connect to Copilot, Microsoft’s chatbot experience based on GPT-4o, to summarize key points in uploaded files, draft working documents, and create AI-generated images. You can ask them to create one for you. Or use the built-in Copilot Pages tool to collaborate on projects with your teammates or AI.
Microsoft specifically touts Copilot Chat’s task automation feature, calling it “Agent.”
The Microsoft 365 Copilot app allows Copilot Chat users to launch an “agent” to perform basic tasks such as providing account details before a sales meeting or providing instructions to a field service representative. Can be automated. IT administrators can not only build and manage the deployment of agents across their organization, but also manage access and security for individual agents.
Agent pricing will be set on a “pay-as-you-go” basis, Microsoft told TechCrunch. No further details were disclosed. We have reached out to the company for detailed pricing information and will update this article if we hear back.
The Copilot Chat plan lacks many features of Microsoft 365 Copilot, including pre-built agents and AI-powered features for Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Copilot Chat users also won’t have the personalization options available to Microsoft 365 Copilot subscribers, nor will they be able to take advantage of Microsoft’s recently introduced Copilot Analytics tool to measure enterprise-wide AI usage.
Copilot Chat dangles pay-as-you-go agent capabilities in Microsoft’s attempt to persuade holdouts to pull the trigger on Microsoft 365 Copilot while extracting incremental revenue from customers with less complex AI requirements It seems pretty obvious that .
Microsoft 365 Copilot wasn’t quite a home run for the tech giant. Copilot, which Microsoft claims is used by nearly 70% of Fortune 500 companies, has proven inefficient, costly, and insecure for many organizations, according to Business Insider. According to a recent Gartner survey, only 3.3% of IT leaders say Copilot provides significant value to their employers.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in an internal memo this week that the company’s focus in 2025 will be on “(AI) model-forward applications” that will “reshape every application category.”
“We have much work to do and great opportunities ahead,” Nadella wrote. “The good news is that we have been working on this effort for over two years and have learned a lot about the systems, app platforms, and tools needed in the AI era.”