Microsoft makes Copilot generally available to enterprise, SMB and consumer customers

Mary Jo Foley is the Editor in Chief at Directions on Microsoft. Before joining Directions, Mary Jo has worked as... more

On January 16, Microsoft will expand availability of its $30 per user per month Copilot for Microsoft 365 so that more enterprise and business customers have the option to buy it.

Microsoft is enabling Office 365 E3 and E5, as well as Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Premium customers — not just Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 ones — to buy Copilot for Microsoft 365. It also is removing the 300-seat minimum requirement. In addition, Microsoft is launching today a version of Copilot for Microsoft 365 Family and Personal consumers for $20 per user per month.

“It’s great that Microsoft is opening up this powerful new technology (Copilot for Microsoft 365) to all customers, including businesses and consumers. The wide availability will create better user awareness and provide more feedback to find creative ways to use the Copilot and find weaknesses that can be addressed,” said Directions on Microsoft analyst Rob Sanfilippo.

The Copilot matrix continues to morph

Microsoft has been changing its branding and availability plans for its various Copilot AI assistants over the past year.

Until just before November 1, Microsoft officials had pledged to make Copilot available to Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 users, as well as Business Standard and Premium small- and midsize business (SMB) users on November 1. Subsequently, Microsoft dropped plans to make Copilot for Microsoft 365 available to anyone other than M365 E3 and E5 customers willing to buy 300 seats minimum and who went through their Microsoft reps to purchase (as Copilot for Microsoft 365 wasn’t on the price list). At the time, Microsoft officials declined to say when Business Standard or Premium customers would get their chance to buy Copilot for Microsoft 365.

However, for the past couple of months, Microsoft has been testing Copilots privately with select SMB customers and some consumers. As of today, Microsoft is making Copilot for Microsoft 365 available to customers via its Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) channel. It also is enabling individuals with Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions to add “Copilot Pro” for $20 per user per month.

Copilot Pro will be available via the Microsoft Store, and possibly other channels. Copilot Pro will work with Word, Excel (currently in preview and English only), PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote on PC, Mac and iPad. (There’s no word so far if and when it also will work with Android and if the consumer version of Teams and Clipchamp will be added to the mix.) Copilot Pro also will be getting at some point “soon” a Copilot GPT builder, which will allow customers to build their own customized Copilots tailored for a specific topic.

Microsoft will continue to offer plain-old Copilot — the product formerly known as Bing Chat — for no additional charge.

It seems Microsoft also will continue to offer the other Copilot — the product formerly named Bing Chat Enterprise. (I’ve asked Microsoft to confirm but no word back yet.) Bing Chat Enterprise is Bing Chat with commercial data protection added for customers who sign in with their Entra ID accounts.

At one point, Microsoft announced that the Bing Chat Enterprise version of Copilot would only be free for those with Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard or Business Premium or for $5 (USD) per user per month as a standalone commercial product. But Microsoft quietly dropped its standalone SKU plans and instead said the enterprise Copilot would be available to any organization using Microsoft Entra ID at no additional cost.

Until today, Microsoft had blocked Office 365 E3 and E5 users from the group of those eligible to buy Copilot for Microsoft 365 for $30 per user per month for no apparent technical reason. There’s been speculation that Microsoft did so to convince more Office 365 users to upgrade to Microsoft 365.

Microsoft officials said they are extending the Semantic Index for Copilot to Office 365 users who have a paid Copilot license. The Semantic Index is meant to work with the underlying Copilot system and Microsoft Graph to create a map of the data and content in an organization to help Microsoft 365 Copilot create more personalized and relevant responses.

Need help tracking the Microsoft Copilots? We’ve got you

Microsoft has announced over two dozen Copilots so far and more are on the way. Directions on Microsoft has created an infographic that pulls together basic facts for 27 Copilots organized into four categories:

Office and Windows
Azure and Developer
Data and Analytics
Business Applications

Our chart provides an at-a-glance understanding of each Copilot, detailing use scenarios; training and customer data used; licensing costs; and dependencies on other Microsoft products.

Get your free copy of this cheat sheet here (for Directions members).