Microsoft 365 Copilot Licensing and Cost
Other things that we don’t know about Copilot include licensing, availability in other languages than English, and implementation dates for different Microsoft 365 apps (online, desktop, and mobile). Microsoft says that they “
will share more about pricing and details in the coming months.” Given the early stage of the software, it’s reasonable for Microsoft to not want to make a definitive statement at this point. We know from products like Loop (due to reach public preview on March 22) that it can take much longer than anticipated to bring software from concept to shipping product. My best guess is that we’ll see some Copilot features light up in Microsoft 365 apps later in 2023.
As to cost, Copilot looks like it is a premium feature instead of something that every Microsoft 365 subscriber will get. My hope is that Microsoft will include Copilot in products like Office 365 E5 and Microsoft 365 E5 instead of requiring customers to buy yet another add-on license. Of course, it would be nice if Microsoft made add-on licenses available for organizations that don’t have high-end licenses. However, recent examples like Teams Premium show that Microsoft like to carve AI-based features out into separate licenses, possibly
to drive as much revenue as possible.