Microsoft Copilot

Overview

Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft's AI assistant available on Web, natively on Windows 11, and on iOS and Android. It is tightly integrated with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams, making it the leading choice for enterprise productivity. Consumers get it through Microsoft 365 Premium, while business customers use Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Latest / Key Features

GPT-5.6 is the primary model

OpenAI states that GPT-5.6 is now the preferred model inside Microsoft 365 Copilot, powering Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Copilot Chat, and Cowork. Alongside it, Microsoft is explicitly positioning its in-house "Microsoft AI Models" family (MAI-Thinking-1 for reasoning, MAI-Code-1-Flash for coding, and multimodal MAI models) as a cheaper, purpose-built tier rather than frontier competitors.

Copilot Pro is no longer sold separately

Microsoft stopped selling standalone Copilot Pro on October 1, 2025 and folded its features into Microsoft 365 Premium ($19.99/mo). Existing Copilot Pro subscriptions stopped renewing after August 1, 2026. Personal and Family plans also include in-app Copilot for the subscription owner.

In-App Copilot Across Office

Copilot appears as a side panel across the Microsoft 365 suite — drafting in Word, generating formulas and analyses in Excel, building slides in PowerPoint, summarizing and drafting in Outlook, and summarizing meetings in Teams.

Copilot Cowork (autonomous agent)

Generally available to Microsoft 365 Copilot subscribers since June 16, 2026. Cowork understands organizational context through "Work IQ" and runs multi-step tasks in the background from the cloud. It bills on consumed compute rather than a flat subscription fee.

Microsoft Security Copilot

Security operations tooling for Microsoft 365 E5 customers, combining Microsoft and partner-built agents to accelerate incident response.

Free Tier

Copilot on web and mobile remains free to use. Free in-app Copilot Chat inside the Office apps was capped on April 15, 2026, however.

Plans & Pricing

Consumer options are now just Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, and Premium — there is no AI-only plan any more — while business buyers add Microsoft 365 Copilot at $30 per user per month.

Plan	Monthly	Highlights
Free	$0	Copilot on web and mobile
Microsoft 365 Personal	$9.99	Office apps, in-app Copilot for the subscriber
Microsoft 365 Family	$12.99	Personal, shared with up to six people
Microsoft 365 Premium	$19.99	Office apps, 1 TB OneDrive, the former Copilot Pro feature set
Microsoft 365 Copilot (business)	$30/user	Add-on to a qualifying M365 license, Copilot Cowork, admin controls

Common Use Cases

• Word: Document drafting, rewriting, summarization
• Excel: Formulas, analysis, pivots
• PowerPoint: Slide drafts and design
• Outlook: Email drafting and thread summaries
• Teams: Meeting summaries, action items
• Security Copilot: SOC incident response

Strengths

• ✅ Deep Microsoft 365 integration — fits existing workflows
• ✅ Enterprise-grade security — Microsoft Graph / Purview aware
• ✅ GPT-5.6 as the primary model, with in-house MAI models for cheaper specialist work
• ✅ Specialized Office agents — targeted to document tasks
• ✅ Security Copilot — built for SOC teams

Weaknesses

• ❌ Business plans require a qualifying Microsoft 365 license
• ❌ You can no longer buy Copilot on its own — a Microsoft 365 subscription is the only route
• ❌ Limited support for building custom bots
• ❌ Value is much lower outside the Microsoft ecosystem
• ❌ Copilot Cowork bills on consumed compute, so agent-heavy usage makes costs hard to forecast

Official Links

• Website: https://copilot.microsoft.com
• Microsoft 365 Copilot: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot
• Individual pricing: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/pricing/individuals
• Business pricing: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/pricing