Microsoft announced on January 15 that it is bringing its free enterprise AI Assistant Copilot rebranded as Microsoft 365 Copilot ChatMicrosoft 365 Copilot, which offers free AI chat and a new pay-as-you-go AI agent, is designed to get users accustomed to and dependent on AI technology in the workplace. The move is designed to get users accustomed to and reliant on AI technology in their work, which in turn will entice them to subscribe to the full version of the Microsoft 365 Copilot service for $30 per month (note: currently around Rs. 220).
In an interview with The Verge, Jared Spataro, chief marketing officer for Microsoft's AI efforts, said, "It's a free and secure AI chat tool, powered by GPT technology. Users can upload files, and the functionality is on par with the competition, if not better in some ways." While Spataro didn't directly name the competition, he was clearly referring to ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is essentially a renamed version of the previous Bing Chat Enterprise. The key to this upgrade is thatUsers can now use the Copilot AI Agent feature directly from the chat interface, which was previously limited to full version Microsoft 365 Copilot subscribersThe AI agents are designed to be virtual coworkers who can perform tasks such as monitoring email inboxes or automating a range of tasks. These AI agents are designed as virtual coworkers, capable of performing things like monitoring an email inbox or automating a range of tasks.
Users can create and use AI agents through Copilot Studio, can use intelligent agents that rely on network data, and can even access job data through Microsoft Graph.Copilot Chat's AI agent usage will be billed either through the Copilot Studio billing system in Azure or through a pay-as-you-go model.
Microsoft has designed a variety of payment options for using the AI agent. Users can choose to pay on-demand, which means they pay for actual usage, or they can choose to purchase a consumption pack, which stops the service when the consumption pack is exhausted.
However, the pricing and consumption model is slightly more complex. Microsoft bills on a message-by-message basis: regular answers that don't involve a large language model are counted as 1 message, generated answers are counted as 2 messages, and access to the Microsoft Graph (including files stored in SharePoint) is counted as 30 messages. Spataro explains, "Each message is equivalent to 1 cent, so it can simply be converted to 1 cent, 2 cents, or 30 cents. The cost is billed to the Azure billing system and deducted from the user's Microsoft Azure Consumer Commitment (MACC)."
Microsoft also provided some costing examples of organizations using AI agents. For example, let's say an organization uses an AI agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat to answer employee questions about HR policies via Microsoft Graph data. If the agent consumes 200 generated responses and 200 tenant Graph data requests in a day, the cost for that day would be 6,400 messages, or $64.
The actual Copilot Chat chat experience is much the same as before, still using GPT-4o to process queries. Users can also upload files for Copilot Chat to summarize Word documents or analyze data in Excel tables. If users subscribe to the full version of Microsoft 365 Copilot, they can use these features directly in Word or Excel without having to manually upload files. spataro said Microsoft has no plans to launch a trial version of Microsoft 365 Copilot at this time, but Copilot Chat is clearly designed to appeal to businesses that pay to use Copilot in Office applications. to pay to use Copilot features in Office apps.
