New to Microsoft Copilot in January 2024

This morning, Microsoft has announced some exciting and much anticipated updates to Microsoft Copilot.

These updates are all in line with Microsoft’s vision of making Copilot more accessible to a wider audience.

Introducing Copilot Pro

The primary addition is Copilot Pro, a subscription priced at $20USD per user per month.

Copilot Pro provides:

• 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.
• Access to Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote on PC, Mac and iPad for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers.
• Priority access to the very latest models including OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo. With Copilot Pro you’ll have access to GPT-4 Turbo during peak times for faster performance and the ability to toggle between models to optimise your experience.
• Enhanced AI image creation with Image Creator from Designer ensuring it’s faster with 100 boosts per day while bringing you more detailed image quality as well as landscape image format.
• The ability to build your own Copilot GPT – a customised Copilot tailored for a specific topic – in the new Copilot GPT Builder (coming soon) with a simple set of prompts.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Updates

While Copilot Pro is geared towards individuals, Copilot for Microsoft 365 caters more specifically to organisations. It offers the same priority access to the latest models and integrates with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Microsoft Teams.

Today’s key updates include 3 of the more anticipated points around Copilot and its availability:

1. Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now generally available for small businesses with Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Business Standard Customers can purchase between one and 299 seats for $30USD per user per month.
2. Removing the 300-seat purchase minimum for commercial plans and making Copilot available for Office 365 E3 and E5 customers (A Microsoft 365 license was previously required).
3. Commercial customers can now purchase Copilot for Microsoft 365 through Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider partners.

Introducing new features in Copilot

In addition to the availability of Copilot to even more people, there are also a few new features added to M365 Copilot, including:

1. Copilot GPTs – Copilot GPTs let you customise the behaviour of Microsoft Copilot on a topic that is of particular interest to you. A handful of Copilot GPTs will start to roll out beginning today with specific purposes such as fitness, travel, cooking and more.
2. Copilot mobile app – The Copilot mobile app is now available for Android and iOS. The Copilot app gives you the power of Copilot on the go as your Copilot queries and chats will roam across your phone and PC. The Copilot mobile app includes the same capabilities of Copilot on your PC including access to GPT-4, Dall-E 3 for image creation, and the ability to use images from your phone when chatting with Copilot.
3. Copilot in the Microsoft 365 mobile app – Microsoft have also announced they are adding Copilot to the Microsoft 365 mobile app for Android and iOS for users with a Microsoft account.

These updates answer a few of the more pressing questions around availability of Copilot, and now having removed some of the barriers to entry we’re sure to see Copilot embedded in more and more businesses very quickly.

It’s exciting times in the world of AI and the Modern Workplace, and we are certainly looking forward to helping implement Copilot for our customers.

If you’d like to get started on your journey into AI with Microsoft Copilot, our team are ready to help – from engineering and security requirements to Training & Adoption.