Copilot With Microsoft 365 Is Finally Available to Everyone
Microsoft’s chatbot Copilot has established itself as a serious competitor in the artificial intelligence market. While Google’s “Bard” bot relies on its own LLM, Copilot runs on the same models as ChatGPT. In fact, it even gives users free access to GPT-4, which ChatGPT users must pay $20 per month to access.
However, Copilot’s consumer-facing experience primarily focuses on text and image creation, as well as conversational search. If your work uses Microsoft 365, you already had access to the premium version of Copilot, which Microsoft has always promised will be coming to consumers soon. As it turns out, we come to that line in the form of Co-Pilot Pro.
What makes Copilot a “Pro”?
The main benefit of Copilot Pro is access to Copilot in Microsoft 365 Apps. At launch, this is available on Windows, Mac and iPad, but will soon be available in iPhone and Android apps. This means you can use AI Clippy in Microsoft Word, Excel (in preview), Powerpoint, Outlook, and OneNote (Windows only). If you have experience using artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT or even the free Copilot, you can imagine how many use cases there are in the Microsoft Office suite.
You can ask Copilot to create a proposal in Word from a combination of meeting notes from OneNote and a separate client document; ask an AI bot to analyze a spreadsheet and report specific trends it sees based on the data; or click Start Viewing in Outlook to view your most important emails first (at least what Copilot considers most important). More examples of how Microsoft sees Copilot being used in 365 Apps can be seen on its official page here .
These features are nothing new: Microsoft first announced Copilot for Microsoft 365 back in March last year , and business users have been able to access Copilot in 365 apps since November . But for the first time, everyday consumers can try out these AI tools for both work and personal use.
But it’s not just AI-powered Office that makes Copilot Pro more powerful than its free version. With Pro you get priority access to GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo during peak hours. While the free version of Copilot is great because you can use GPT-4 without paying for ChatGPT Plus, you will lose access to the more advanced OpenAI LLM when demand gets too high. This is not much different from what happens to users of virtual carriers (like Mint Mobile) during periods of peak cellular traffic.
Going Pro also gives you access to DALL-E 3 through Designer (formerly known as Bing Image Creator ), including landscape images (not just portrait ones). You now get 100 “boosts” rather than 15, which means you have more ability to prioritize image requests. As with the ChatGPT Plus subscription, you’ll also be able to create your own Copilot GPTs, an easy way to create a Copilot bot that can do whatever you want.
How much does Copilot Pro cost?
At launch, Microsoft charges $20 per month for Copilot Pro. However, this will not include access to Microsoft 365 and its apps. To use Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more, you need to separately purchase a 365 subscription , which costs $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year for individuals. This raises the price to $25.83 or $26.99 per month if you want to take advantage of this side of Copilot Pro.
If you’re on the family plan, it also gets more expensive: Copilot Pro only offers individual subscriptions, so everyone on the 365 family plan will have to pay $20 a month each for access.
You can sign up for Copilot Pro on the Microsoft website here .