Microsoft’s Copilot now available to SMEs

Microsoft is expanding access to its Copilot AI companion, available to a restricted set of customers since November.

Originally offered to enterprises who could afford thousands of dollars per month for a minimum of 300 users, Copilot is now available to businesses between one and 299 seats on a US$30 per month subscription ($44.90 in Australia). 

That subscription provides access to Copilot for Microsoft 365, with integration into Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

The company has also removed the requirement for a Microsoft 365 licence, making Copilot available to customers with Office 365 E3 and E5 licences as well.

Copilot features added with this launch include Copilot GPTs, a mobile app, and Copilot in the Microsoft 365 mobile app.

Copilot GPTs customise its behaviour to particular topics such as fitness, travel, and cooking; and Microsoft said users will soon get Copilot GPT builder to create their own GPTs.

The company is also touting better image creation in Image Creator from Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator), along with support for landscape images.

Copilot Pro for individuals

For individuals, there’s a US$20 per month subscription called Copilot Pro, which brings AI capabilities to Microsoft 365 personal and family subscribers.

Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote are fully operational now, with Excel integration in an English-language preview.

Copilot Pro will be supported on phones in the future, and Microsoft said the subscription provides “priority access” to the latest AI models, including OpenAI’s GPT-4 immediately.

Users will also soon be able to toggle between AI models, to “optimise your experience how you choose”.

IBRS advisor Dr Joseph Sweeney told iTnews the timing of the launch reflects a problem common to large vendors offering broad-based AIs.

“People are beginning to realise that this stuff is expensive to run … Microsoft knew it was going to be a problem, so they’ve been very careful about limiting its growth.”

iTnews has asked Microsoft for details on its Australian Copilot pricing.

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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