Microsoft strengthens enterprise AI assistant: GPT-4o empowers 365 Copilot Chat for free chatting, with agents charged based on usage

Author: Li Dan

Source: Hard AI

Microsoft's artificial intelligence (AI) assistant for enterprise users, Microsoft 365 Copilot, has been online for over a year but has not yet gained widespread adoption. Now, Microsoft is ramping up efforts to promote its enterprise AI assistant by launching a new assistant service that includes various Microsoft 365 Copilot features with more flexible pricing.

On January 15th, Eastern Time, Microsoft announced the launch of a new Copilot assistant called Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, which will be available to business customers starting Wednesday. It includes three service components:

Free secure AI chat powered by OpenAI's flagship model GPT-4o; an agent that can be accessed directly in the chat; IT controls, including enterprise data protection and agent management.

Microsoft introduced that Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat provides GPT-4o-powered chat via the web, allowing enterprise users to conduct market research, draft strategic documents, or prepare for meetings. For example, users can add any document to the chat using the File uploads feature and let Copilot perform tasks such as summarizing key points from Word documents or analyzing data in Excel spreadsheets. The Copilot Pages feature enables real-time collaboration between customers and AI, while the AI-generated images feature can quickly generate images.

In terms of agent services, enterprise users can create agents using natural language and automatically execute repetitive tasks and business processes directly through Copilot Chat. For instance, customer service representatives can inquire about account details from a customer relationship management (CRM) agent before meeting with clients, and on-site service agents can access step-by-step instructions and real-time product knowledge stored in SharePoint. Agents are billed based on usage. IT administrators can build organization-wide agents and manage agent deployment.

Regarding IT controls, Copilot Chat includes the basic features of the Copilot control system, including enterprise data protection (EDP) for data privacy and security, managing access, and overseeing the use and lifecycle of Copilot and agents.

Charged by message usage: 1 cent per message, $200 monthly, varying message volumes for different features

Microsoft stated that Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is part of the Microsoft 365 Copilot service. Compared to the $30 monthly fee for Microsoft 365 Copilot, it adopts a model that combines some free features with some usage-based charges for agent services, charging enterprise users based on the volume of messages used with the agents The image below shows a comparison of the services provided by Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot.

For customers, the total cost of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is calculated based on the total number of messages used. Microsoft offers two charging methods: one is pay-as-you-go, charging $0.01 per message through the Copilot Studio meter in Microsoft Azure Cloud, and the other is a prepaid monthly package, which allows for 25,000 messages per month at a cost of $200.

In other words, if you choose the first charging method, there is no charge as long as no messages are used by the agent; if one message is used, it only costs 1 cent, with no upper limit. If you choose the second option, it costs $200 per month regardless of whether you use 25,000 messages or just one.

At the same time, the usage of agent information also varies based on the complexity, frequency, and specific functions of the agent itself. These functions are divided into five categories. Among them, responding based on user proprietary files, i.e., files stored in SharePoint and external data synchronized through Graph connections, costs 30 messages, while each action taken by the agent on behalf of an employee costs 25 messages.

Microsoft 365 Copilot App Available to Attract Subscriptions to Microsoft 365 Copilot

Unlike Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat cannot be used in Office applications like Word and Excel. Enterprise users can use Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat in the Microsoft 365 Copilot App available for Windows, Android, and iOS, which was originally named Microsoft 365 (Office). Users can also access it on the official website m365copilot.com.

Commentators believe that Copilot Chat is Microsoft's latest attempt to get users accustomed to using AI in their work and relying on AI. Through this habit and reliance, it can attract users to subscribe to the full version of Microsoft 365 Copilot service for a monthly fee of $30.

Jared Spataro, Chief Marketing Officer of Microsoft AI at Work, stated this week that Copilot Chat can serve as an entry point for Microsoft 365 Copilot, with a lower entry barrier compared to the latter There are also comments stating that Copilot Chat demonstrates Microsoft's determination to popularize generative AI in the workplace. Microsoft 365 Copilot, launched in November 2023, utilizes OpenAI's technology but has not yet seen widespread application. Last month, UBS analysts commented in a report that the Copilot innovations updated at Microsoft's 2024 Ignite conference made them feel that the product launch of Copilot was "a bit slow and not satisfactory."

Some management teams refuse to pay for the 365 Copilot for employees because they are unsure how much help spending $30 per month would provide. The cost of Copilot Chat will vary depending on how employees use it, but at least organizations will not have to pay if they do not use it at all. Spataro mentioned that some customers told him that this model proves its commercial value