Microsoft is broadening access to its artificial intelligence (AI) assistant services, offering a consumer version of Copilot at a subscription fee of $20 per month. This move is aimed at increasing the user base for its new services. The consumer version of Copilot provides access to OpenAI‘s latest ChatGPT technology and image-creation features. Users with a cloud subscription to Office will be able to leverage Copilot for tasks such as answering questions, summarizing data, and creating content in Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Previously, Microsoft offered a similar product primarily to large enterprises for a monthly fee of $30 per user. The company is eliminating the 300-subscription minimum requirement for its enterprise service. The decision to make Copilot more accessible to smaller businesses aligns with Microsoft’s strategy to integrate AI tools from OpenAI across its products, with Office products serving as a key avenue to encourage customers to pay for AI assistance.
Microsoft has observed exceptionally high demand for its AI tools, with executives likening it to the enthusiasm seen during the launch of Windows 95 nearly three decades ago. Copilot for Microsoft 365, initially tested since March 2023 and widely available since November, will now be more accessible to small and medium businesses, eliminating the previous subscription minimum.
The consumer service, named Copilot Pro, offers features comparable to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus at the same price. Microsoft plans to introduce a builder tool, allowing individuals to create their own Copilots for specific topics, a service already available to enterprises. The company’s privacy rules for the consumer version differ from the business variant, with Microsoft retaining a portion of prompts and responses from the consumer model to enhance and retrain models, thereby improving the product.