The bean counters over at Microsoft have seemingly found a way to make its AI-powered platform Copilot profitable and seems to be testing that new plan on Microsoft 365 subscribers in the Asian-Pacific region.
According to a new announcement from Microsoft, its M365 subscribers will soon be paying an additional $20 a month for Copilot features the company has designated as ‘Pro’.
Microsoft Copilot Pro features will be embedded throughout the company’s flagship productivity suite to include the following:
- Copilot in Word transforms your writing and reading experience by generating outlines or full drafts, suggesting rewrites to better capture your ideas, summarizing long texts into digestible pieces, and even creating unique images to complement your documents.
- Copilot in Excel helps you analyze your data to provide actionable insights and graphs, and generates formulas based on your requirements.
- Copilot in PowerPoint enhances your storytelling by generating full outlines with visuals, text, and speaker notes, and allows you to create custom images to make your presentations more engaging.
- Copilot in Outlook makes managing emails a breeze by drafting emails based on your intent, providing tips to improve tone and clarity, and summarizing email threads to help you catch up quickly.
- Copilot in OneNote takes your notetaking to the next level by helping you organize information, create lists, draft plans, generate ideas, and offers insights into past notes.
In addition to productivity based AI features, M365 subscribers will also now have support for the Microsoft Designer platform that can be utilized text-to-image, templated art content, and pre-generative art enhancements as part of the new Copilot Pro bundling shift.
It should be noted that Microsoft has already introduced its Copilot Pro as a paid experience. However, when the company first introduced Copilot Pro back in March of 2024, Microsoft pitched it as an optional add-on for commercial M365 subscribers, making the entire experience a multi-level opt-in process involving executive and admin approval of the total cost.
Unfortunately, this time around M365 Personal and Family subscribers in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand will now be opted into paying the additional $20 for Copilot features they may never use.
To try and sweeten the news of an impending price increase, Microsoft has also mentioned that M365 Personal and Family subscribers “will receive a monthly allotment of AI credits to use Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Designer. The credits will also apply to apps like Paint, Photos, and Notepad on Windows. Those who frequently use Copilot can upgrade to Copilot Pro, without worrying about usage limits.”
For the anti-AI crowd, Microsoft hasn’t fully shut the door on offering a Copilot free version of its M365 subscription. Microsoft will continue to offer M365 Classic options without Copilot Pro bundled in for customers in the Asia-Pacific Region. How long Microsoft continues to offer an off-ramp of its need-to-be-paid-for AI platform to customers remains a looming question.
Microsoft has chosen the Asia-Pacific region to enact this new price increase on M365 Personal and Family users and it now feels like it’s only a matter of time before its European and Americas regions wind up with similar mandated bundling with no opt out features as the company looks to find ways to subsidize all the upfront investments it’s made on AI.
Adding a $20 bloatware tax on $345 million customers could net Microsoft close to $6.9 billion a year with little effort: with math like that, it’s only a matter of time before we’re hearing from Microsoft about how much MORE helpful now that it’s tied to a price for M365.
According to a new annoucement from Microsoft, its M365 subscribers will soon be paying an additional $20 a month for Copilot features the company has designated as ‘Pro’.
Microsoft Copilot Pro features will be embeded throughout the company’s flagship productivity suite to include the following:
- Copilot in Word transforms your writing and reading experience by generating outlines or full drafts, suggesting rewrites to better capture your ideas, summarizing long texts into digestible pieces, and even creating unique images to complement your documents.
- Copilot in Excel helps you analyze your data to provide actionable insights and graphs, and generates formulas based on your requirements.
- Copilot in PowerPoint enhances your storytelling by generating full outlines with visuals, text, and speaker notes, and allows you to create custom images to make your presentations more engaging.
- Copilot in Outlook makes managing emails a breeze by drafting emails based on your intent, providing tips to improve tone and clarity, and summarizing email threads to help you catch up quickly.
- Copilot in OneNote takes your notetaking to the next level by helping you organize information, create lists, draft plans, generate ideas, and offers insights into past notes.
In addition to productivity based AI features, M365 subscribers will also now have support for the Microsoft Designer platform that can be utilized text-to-image, templated art content, and pre-generative art enhancemnts as part of the new Copilot Pro bundling shift.
It should be noted that Microsoft has already introduced its Copilot Pro as a paid experience. However, when the company first introduced Copilot Pro back in March of 2024, Microsoft pitched it as an optional add-on for commerical M365 subscribers, making the entire experience a multi-level opt-in process involving executive and admin approval of the total cost.
Unfortunately, this time around M365 Personal and Family subscribers in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand will now be opted into paying the additional $20 for Copilot features they may never use.
To try and sweeten the news of an impending price increase, Microsoft has also mentioned that M365 Personal and Family subscribers “will receive a monthly allotment of AI credits to use Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Designer. The credits will also apply to apps like Paint, Photos, and Notepad on Windows. Those who frequently use Copilot can upgrade to Copilot Pro, without worrying about usage limits.”
For the anti-AI crowd, Microsoft hasn’t fully shut the door on offering a Copilot free version of its M365 subscription. Microsoft will continue to offer M365 Classic options without Copilot Pro bundled in for customers in the Asia-Pacific Region. How long Microsoft continues to offer an off-ramp of its need-to-be-paid-for AI platform to customers remains a looming question.
Microsoft has choosen the Asia-Pacific region to inact this new price increase on M365 Personal and Family users and it now feels like it’s only a matter of time before its European and Americas regions wind up with similar mandated bundling with no opt out features as the company looks to find ways to subsidize all of the upfron investments its made on AI.
Adding a $20 bloatware tax on $345 million customers could net Microsoft close to $6.9 billion a year with little effort; with math like that, it’s only a matter of time before we’re hearing from Microsoft about how much MORE helpful now that its tied to a price for M365.
