Demystifying Microsoft’s Copilots

• Copilot-branded technologies from Microsoft assist users in completing tasks, but Microsoft overstates ROI.
• Almost all Copilots bring significant costs, and some depend on other Copilot offerings; Microsoft’s documentation and product naming is poor.
• Few Copilots document exactly what features within each service are lit up by a given Copilot, and whether it is in preview or generally available.

Copilot, formally Microsoft Copilot, is a brand applied to a range of Microsoft-hosted user assistance services. Copilot branding has been haphazardly applied to numerous Microsoft services and to several related technologies that are external to Azure or do not use large language models (LLMs), resulting in customer confusion. To make effective licensing decisions, customers must understand the range of Copilot options available to them, and they must consider what value a specific Copilot purports to offer, how much it costs, and where specific details and documentation about it reside. Because the costs of most Copilots can be significant, it is important that customers assess their return on investment (ROI) before and after deployment to ensure that employees continue to get value out of a given Copilot. This report surveys key Copilot offerings and their features.