Microsoft 365 is stepping-up with its new Copilot Chat for corporations—a pay-as-you-go plan made possible by OpenAI’s GPT-4o AI model. It offers business-specific solutions; from question-answering to creating workflow automations and images. Previously, these features were part of the rigidly priced Microsoft 365 Copilot, costing $30 per user every month.
Copilot Chat is a new, more flexible alternative for Microsoft 365 commercial users. Its AI-enabled chat experience provides a platform for Microsoft 365 users to engage with AI regularly, increasing productivity within an organization.
Using the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, users can seek Copilot’s assistance for actions like summarizing document key points, drafting a word document, or creating AI-generated images. A primary feature of Copilot Chat is the automation of tasks, allowing users to develop “agents” which execute basic tasks like sharing account details before a meeting or providing instructions for field service workers.
However, Copilot Chat lacks many of the Microsoft 365 Copilot features offered at a fixed price, such as prebuilt agents, AI capabilities for Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. So, while Copilot Chat may induce more users to join Microsoft 365 Copilot, it is also a strategy to generate additional revenue from customers with simpler AI needs.
Despite the fact that 70% of Fortune 500 companies utilize Microsoft 365 Copilot, it still presents drawbacks—being costly, ineffective, and insecure for multiple organizations. Thus, Microsoft plans to develop AI “model-forward applications” in 2025 to revolutionize all application categories.
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