Microsoft has revealed new versions of its OpenAI-powered Copilot services, at prices around triple the cost of its flagship M365 suite.
A Monday post penned by executive veep consumer chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi details a new offering called “Copilot Pro” that brings Copilot to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote, allows access to GPT-4, Image Creator from Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator), and a GPT building tool that Microsoft says is coming soon.
“A handful of Copilot GPTs will start to roll out beginning today with specific purposes such as fitness, travel, cooking and more,” Medhi’s post states. “Soon, Copilot Pro users will also be able to create their own Copilot GPTs using Copilot GPT Builder,” he added.
The service will also provide “A single AI experience that runs across your devices, understanding your context on the web, on your PC, across your apps and soon on your phone to bring the right skills to you when you need them.”
Subscribers to M365 Personal or Family can access the Pro service – for $20/month/user.
M365 Personal costs $69.99 a year or $6.99 a month, and M365 costs $99.99 a year or $9.99 a month for six users. Copilot Pro is therefore priced at a considerable premium.
Microsoft’s also removed the requirement that Copilot for M365 is only sold to orgs willing to acquire 300 or more seats. Buyers of Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Business Standard can now purchase between one and 299 seats for $30 per person per month. Again, that price is a considerable premium over the monthly cost of M365 alone.
Redmond clearly feels plenty are willing to pay for AI-driven help in their daily work. But the company also clearly recognizes that the price of Copilot Pro may deter consumers, as Mehdi pitched the product at “r power users, creators and anyone looking to take their Copilot experience to the next level.”
Microsoft also announced the formal debut of the Copilot mobile app for Android and iOS – both of which quietly debuted in late 2023 as we reported a couple of weeks ago. The M365 mobile app has also gained Copilot functionality.
The vast network of Microsoft resellers has also been invited to the Copilot party – they can now sell you Redmond’s AI wares, an opportunity that will be welcome as M365 is a mature market and the chance to strike up a new conversation with clients is just what channel types adore.
Making Copilot available to hundreds of millions more users suggests Microsoft is confident its cloud has the capacity to deliver AI at very substantial scale and has been able to acquire the hardware necessary to do so while delivering an experience that users will feel justifies the price tag of $20 or $30 a month. ®
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- Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/15/copilot_pro_small_biz/
