Microsoft launches a Pro plan for Copilot
Microsoft evidently envisions Copilot, the umbrella brand for its portfolio of AI-powered, content-generating technologies, becoming a significant future revenue line-item. And that’s perhaps not far off base; according to the company, more than 40% of the Fortune 100 participated in its Copilot early access program.
But given the enormous cost of running GenAI models in the cloud, getting Copilot from expenditure to reliable revenue generator will require sustained — and large-scale, ideally — growth.
Surely aware of this, Microsoft is today launching a consumer-focused paid Copilot plan and loosening the eligibility requirements for enterprise-level Copilot offerings. The goal, it appears, is to broaden the base of potential paying Copilot customers while making Microsoft’s existing services — namely Word, Excel and the other apps within the tech giant’s Microsoft 365 family — more attractive through AI features.
Copilot Pro — the new consumer plan, priced at $20 per user per month — gives customers access to Copilot GenAI features across Word, Excel (in preview, only in English for now), PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote on PC, Mac and iPad — if they have a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family plan, that is. Copilot Pro doesn’t come bundled with a Microsoft 365 subscription. As with the Copilot enterprise offering (Copilot for Microsoft 365), it’s a premium add-on — bringing the total cost of the lowest-tier Microsoft 365 subscription to $27 per month ($6.99 per month for Microsoft 365 Personal plus $20 for Copilot Pro).
The Microsoft 365 capabilities in tow with Copilot Pro are the same that enterprise customers have had for a while.
In Word and OneNote, Copilot writes, edits, summarizes and generates text. Copilot in Excel and PowerPoint turns natural language commands into designed presentations and data visualizations. And in Outlook, Copilot helps draft email responses with toggles to adapt the length or tone.
Beyond the Microsoft 365 upgrades, Copilot Pro subscribers get 100 “boosts” per day in Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator), Microsoft’s AI-powered image creation tool, to speed up the image generation process — plus improved generation quality and landscape formatting options. And they have priority access to the newest GenAI models underpinning Copilot, including OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo, for what Microsoft claims is better performance during peak times.
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