Microsoft 365 Copilot AI’s steep price is an ill omen for Windows users

If you thought that Microsoft wouldn’t capitalize on its AI opportunity for businesses, think again.

Microsoft will tell its corporate partners this week at Microsoft Inspire that it will charge a whopping $30 per user per month for Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft’s AI-assisted features for its Microsoft 365 suite — double what it’s charging for Microsoft 365 by itself. Microsoft is also announcing a specialized version of Bing Chat for businesses, Bing Chat Enterprise, that will can be used to ask the AI questions about a company’s confidential information without it being leaked outside of corporate firewalls.

Microsoft is clearly betting that enterprises will value Microsoft 365 Copilot enough that they’ll want to pay for the additional features Copilot offers, which vary by Office application. In fact, Microsoft isn’t even saying when Microsoft 365 Copilot will be available this week at its Inspire conference — just preparing those customers (specifically Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard and Business Premium customers) that they’ll have to pay a ton for the additional AI services.

First announced in March, Microsoft 365 Copilot continues to apply intelligence to enterprise data, the portion of Microsoft’s customer base most likely to want to invest in smarter decisions. For years, these smarts were reserved for PowerBI, bringing in third-party sources of data to let users and Microsoft analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their businesses.

Now, AI will be everywhere. They identified Microsoft 365 Copilot as Microsoft’s killer app, not only because of its AI capabilities but because how Microsoft 365 Copilot can change your everyday work day: allowing you to actually skip meetings, zip through your email, and author documents and presentations.

Microsoft

Microsoft clearly believes that businesses will pay up. Microsoft actually charges businesses about what consumers end up paying for Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 Apps for Business is the most comparable plan, and Microsoft charges $8.25 per user per month for the desktop versions of the Office apps plus a terabyte of OneDrive cloud storage. Microsoft 365 Business Standard ($12.50/user/mo) and Business Premium ($22/user/mo) cost more for additional data controls. Put another way, Microsoft is charging more per user per month for AI — double, in some cases! — than Office itself.

“The comparatively high price point for Microsoft 365 Copilot will likely mean that most early adopting customers will focus on equipping employee roles that have high-value use cases for generative AI, such as marketing, sales and customer service, rather than just roll it out enterprise-wide to all Microsoft 365 users,” said Jason Wong, a vice president and analyst at Gartner, in an email. “With all the hype for generative AI, organizations expect equal value in return.”

What Microsoft hasn’t done, however, is disclose anything about what the company will charge everyday Windows users for adding AI to its consumer Microsoft 365 subscriptions. Microsoft currently charges $69.99 per year for Microsoft 365 Personal ($6.99 per month), and $99.99 per year (or $9.99 per month) for a Microsoft 365 Family Plan for between two to six people. If Microsoft plans to charge an additional $30/user/mo for Microsoft 365 Copilot, will consumers end up footing a similar bill?

We don’t know. A company representative replied that Microsoft has “nothing more to share” about what, if anything, it will charge consumers for Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Microsoft

We do know, of course, that Microsoft loves subscriptions. Just this week, Microsoft revamped its Games with Gold program (which gave you free Xbox games) to rename it as Game Pass Core, which allows you access to a small subset of games within of the main Game Pass Ultimate subscription. Windows is the “socket” for subscriptions, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella has said. Meanwhile, more and more Windows apps quietly hide subscriptions, and that’s before you arrive at Microsoft 365’s overt monthly payment. Microsoft wants you paying for Office, and probably AI, like your water bill — grumble all you want, but just put it on autopay and budget it in.

To sweeten the deal, Microsoft is adding the Bing Chat Enterprise to the same Microsoft 365 business plans that are receiving paid access to Microsoft 365 Copilot, but at no additional cost. What Microsoft is doing, however, is making Bing Chat Enterprise available to those businesses who do not want to pay for Microsoft 365 for an optional $5 per user, per month.

“Just like Bing Chat, Bing Chat Enterprise is grounded in web data and provides complete, verifiable answers with citations, along with visual answers that include graphs, charts and images,” Microsoft said in a blog post. More importantly, the information a business customer enters is not sent into the Microsoft cloud, but remains protected.

On Windows, Windows Copilot is essentially a front door to Bing Chat on the Web, a somewhat unimpressive anticlimax to months of Microsoft hype. But it is free, at least for now, and Microsoft is adding a new feature: visual search. That’s a response to Google Bard, Google’s own AI engine, which added visual search last week.

In search, though, the race between Google and Microsoft is a tight one. Consumers will benefit as each company tries to entice you with free features. Google’s Workspace is fighting to increase its market share in the enterprise, but Microsoft clearly feels that Microsoft 365 has the upper hand — and will demand businesses pay for the additional AI capabilities. How the company eventually prices Microsoft 365 for consumers, though, will be a major tell in how it believes average users perceive Microsoft 365 versus Google Workspace. Right now, it looks like Microsoft expects you to open your wallet.

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5 CTOs on the collaboration tools they use most

Chief technology officers (CTOs) are charged with discovering technology solutions that can help their organizations gain a competitive edge. These leaders also keep an eye out for tools that can help them and their teams work more efficiently and achieve great results.

I asked CTOs about the products and services they're using for collaboration and knowledge sharing, particularly in hybrid and remote teams. What I found was a mix of tried-and-true collaboration tools and newer products that leverage exciting trends in the tech world today.

Because communication with tech teams and other C-level executives is such an important part of the CTO’s job, it is not surprising that tools that improve collaboration and productivity were key for the tech leaders I spoke with.

“Collaboration and productivity tools such as Slack, Google Workspace, and Microsoft Office 365 help me communicate effectively with my team members and stakeholders, as well as access, collaborate on, and organize files in the cloud,” says Ariel Katz, CTO at software company Sisence.

“Slack allows for real-time communication and file sharing among team members, while Google Workspace and Microsoft Office 365 [provide] me with essential tools such as email, document creation, and project management,” Katz says. “I’m using Microsoft To-Do and OneNote to manage and share meeting notes I’m taking, typically on a tablet with a pen."

“Collaboration tools including video conferencing platforms [help] their teams to work effectively across the globe,” says Robert Rozploch, CTO at Clearspeed, a provider of risk exam tools.

“I work with teams of people across the globe, and it’s crucial for us all to be on the same page at all times, while also fostering a sense of connection in this changing workplace dynamic,” Rozploch says. “Culture is just as important as tools for encouraging business and technical teams to work together. They work to make sure that teams are either connected on the same platform, or are using tools that are well integrated with each other, making it easy to find what they need and work together.”

Knowledge management software is designed to provide access and oversight as information moves throughout an enterprise. It's used for operations related to documents and files.

Research firm Gartner says knowledge management software is compatible with multiple file types such as documents, presentations, audio-video files, etc., to help enable operations. “Enterprises leverage the software to create a centralized repository of information that traditionally existed in silos,” the firm says.

The main function of the software is to store, retrieve, and share information across an organization in a convenient, secure, and reliable manner, the firm says.

“One of the most crucial tools I use is a knowledge management platform such as Confluence,” says Aron Brand, CTO of CTERA, a provider of cloud-based services. “It allows me to preserve the wealth of knowledge generated within my organization in a centralized, searchable repository.”

This is essential in Brand’s role as a CTO, “as I need to have quick access to a variety of information, including engineering documents, product management discussions, competitive materials, and more,” he says. “This tool also enables effective collaboration, as I can share and discuss ideas with my team in the context of the documents that they are building together.”

It's no surprise that CTOs are integrating large language models (LLMs) such as Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3) into their workflow.

ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022, is built on GPT-3 and is one of the fastest-growing consumer software applications in history. It allows users to refine a conversation toward a particular length, format, style, level of detail, and language used.

Large language models including GPT-3 have become indispensable for Brand in his work. “These tools are a huge timesaver and enhance my productivity by providing quick and accurate answers to various questions,” he says. “This has become a valuable daily tool for me, as it allows me to make informed decisions rapidly and take on writing tasks with confidence.”

Brand says he has been using LLMs such as GPT-2 and GPT-3 since they became publicly available. He says they have played a vital role in keeping him ahead of the curve.

“Machine learning and AI technologies are becoming increasingly important for organizations that rely on data-driven insights to make informed decisions,” Katz says. “As a CTO, I use AI-powered conversational agents like ChatGPT to improve my productivity and gain insights into various technical aspects of my organization.”

A digital or interactive whiteboard is a large interactive display board that can be standalone through a touchscreen on a computer or a connected device. Cloud-based platforms let users taking part in a collaborative session control the board and contribute to its content.

“As a CTO, it is important to accept that it’s not always the new cool and fancy technologies that help you do your job better, but how you use available tools,” says Kevin McInturff, CTO at Logility, a company that provides demand-planning software for the supply-chain market.

“Digital whiteboards became one of my favorite tools pre-pandemic for their ability to quickly discover information, align on understanding, and create a less ephemeral artifact than their [in real life] equivalent,” McInturff says. “During the pandemic, they became essential as in-person time became impossible, but they still needed to deliver on projects.”

Ninish Ukkan, CTO at Arvest Bank, says he values mentorship and providing the next generation of product developers with guidance and support so they can reach their full potential and make a positive impact in the world.

“As a result, I try to use various collaboration and visualization tools in my day-to-day work to ensure my team gets the support they need to succeed,” Ukkan says. Some of the tools he uses include Miro Boards for general visualization and Lucid Charts for technical pictures.

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