Introducing Microsoft Copilot Pro: A New Solution for Small Businesses and Consumers – Discover its Features, Pricing, and More
Microsoft has been actively integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into its various products like Microsoft 365, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Office, and Windows. In line with its goal of creating an AI-driven future, the company has introduced numerous AI-powered offerings, including Bing Chat and its own AI chatbot called Microsoft Copilot. Consolidating all these AI services under one brand, Microsoft has now launched Copilot Pro, making it accessible to both consumers and smaller businesses without any minimum purchase requirements.
Microsoft releases Copilot Pro
Microsoft is selling a $20-a-month consumer version of Copilot with access to OpenAI’s latest ChatGPT technology and image creation features, the Redmond, Washington-based software giant said in a statement. Consumers with an Office cloud subscription can use Copilot to answer questions, summarize information, and create content in Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint. The company, which has sold a similar product to large enterprises for a monthly fee of $30 per user, is waiving the minimum 300 subscriptions for its business service, according to Bloomberg.
As Microsoft has revamped nearly all of its products around AI tools based on OpenAI’s technology, its Office products remain one of the best ways to get customers to pay extra for AI help. Bloomberg reports that executives have said the demand is unusually high, with Azure executive Scott Guthrie comparing it to over-the-counter purchases of Windows 95 software nearly three decades ago.
Microsoft has been testing the Office-based copilot, now called Copilot for Microsoft 365, since March. The company started its wide sale in November, as long as companies bought at least 300 subscriptions. That left out small businesses and those who wanted to start with a smaller experiment, said Microsoft executive vice president Jared Spataro in an interview.
“We’ve almost never seen demand in the commercial space for a product like Microsoft 365’s Copilot,” he said. “We’ve had pressure like I’ve never seen from small and medium-sized businesses, saying ‘why don’t you let us buy this?’ Let’s try it.”
Microsoft announced the new services before the World Economic Forum in Davos, where CEO Satya Nadella will speak in an interview with Bloomberg. Microsoft’s consumer service Copilot Pro offers similar features to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus at the same price, though integration with Office sets their products apart, Spataro said. The company plans to introduce a builder tool similar to the one OpenAI announced last year that allows people to create their own Copilots for a specific topic. The service is already available to companies.
The privacy rules of Microsoft’s consumer version also differ from the business version. Unlike data from business customers, Microsoft said it will retain some of the consumer model’s prompts and responses to retrain the models and improve the product.
(Courtesy of Bloomberg)
