Bringing Artificial Intelligence to the Copilot Chat Room: Pricing and Propagation Rates in the US and Beyond for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family
Copilot Chat is already popular among businesses that rely on Microsoft software and services. Even though it was difficult to find the product and the naming journey was hard to track, we still had a lot of users on it. “What we find is that when you start to use it, you become accustomed to and appreciative of the value that it can provide at work.”
In an interview with The Vernier, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer of artificial intelligence, said that the chat is GPT-powered. We believe that even though it is a lower level, it bests the competition because of the fact that you are able to upload files. Spataro wouldnt say who the other competition was, but it was definitely a name that was familiar to him.
“The first question people ask me is ‘am I writing you a blank check?’” says Spataro, but Microsoft has built controls for how people pay for AI agent access. The way to get rid of the spinning of the meters is to pay in different ways. One way is pay-as-you-go, that is essentially an open account or tab that you’re burning down, but the other way to do it is through consumption packs, and when the pack runs out you’re done.”
The pricing and consumption rates are a little complicated, though. Classic answers that do not hit large language models are priced as one message, whereas generative answers are priced as two messages, and anything accessing the Microsoft Graph will cost 30 messages.
“A message is equivalent to 1 cent, so you can essentially convert it over to 1 cent, 2 cents, and 30 cents,” explains Spataro. It spins an azure meter and burns down a customer account.
It is not like Microsoft has given up on its goal of bringing artificial intelligence to Office, because it has always wanted more people to use it.
The price of Microsoft365 personal and home subscriptions in the US will go up $3 per month to accommodate the new Office features. “We are raising the prices of Microsoft 365 Personal and Family for the first time in 12 years,” says Oystryk. We are raising the price by $3 a month in the US, with similar amounts in other markets.
“We’ve created two new plans that are really only going to be available for the next year, Personal Classic and Family Classic,” explains Oystryk. They will be available when people go through the renewal cycle. If they decide to cancel, they will have the chance to pick a plan from the Family Classic or Personal Classic plans.
Existing subscribers can only sign up for these plans, and new subscribers will get Office features when they sign up with the new pricing changes. It sounds like the classic plans won’t get any of Microsoft’s big new features, though. “They’ll continue to get security updates and minor feature updates, but any new additional innovations that we deliver in the future won’t be included in those plans,” says Oystryk.
It is easy to turn off Copilot in Office apps if you don’t want the AI assistant or are a student, and your school does not allow it. There are times when our users want to turn off Copilot, says Oystryk. Today is the first day that people can switch off Copilot in Microsoft Word and other key apps.