Microsoft has announced plans to pull the plug on its mandatory $20 Copilot Pro fee, in favor of including access to the AI tool as part of the Microsoft 365 subscription bundle.
Microsoft 365 Family and Personal subscribers in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand will get automatic access to Copilot features once they update to the latest version of the productivity suite. This comes less than a year after the company started charging $20 for Copilot Pro licenses on top of the regular Microsoft 365 subscription.
In a news post on the Asia-Pacific section of its website, Microsoft said, “Productivity and creativity are at the heart of Microsoft 365, and with Copilot integration across our apps, you’re now equipped with an AI companion that doesn’t just make your work easier—it makes it more effective (and fun).” Skeptics, on the other hand, are more likely to conclude that Micosoft’s plan to charge an additional monthly fee for Copilot fell flat on its face, which is why the tech giant has made this dramatic U-turn in its approach.
Customers in the affected regions will benefit from a limited number of monthly credits to use on Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. The credits will also apply to the use of Copilot in other apps, such as Paint, Photos, and Notepad. If you want unlimited access to Copilot’s capability, however, you’ll still have to pay the $20 monthly upgrade fee.
Microsoft has also revealed that Microsoft Designer—a program that lets you “create eye-catching images by simply describing what you’re looking for”—will be added to the Microsoft 365 subscription as part of the shake-up. As the news post explains, “In addition to accessing Designer within apps like Word and PowerPoint, you can also use the standalone Designer app on the web and mobile.”
Before you wheel away in celebration, there’s a catch. Even if you don’t plan to use the Copilot features that will be included in your Microsoft 365 plan as standard, the subscription fee is due to increase. Explaining this price rise, which will be automatically added when your subscription next renews, Microsoft said, “To reflect the value we’ve added over the past decade and enable us to deliver new innovations for years to come, we’re increasing the prices of Microsoft 365 Personal and Family.” The extent of this rise will vary from region to region, though it will be cheaper than what you would have previously paid for the Copilot Pro add-on. If you’re a Microsoft 365 Family subscriber, there’s another catch: “Copilot will be available to the subscription owner and cannot be shared with others.”
Microsoft has yet to announce whether these changes and price increases will roll out to other markets around the world.
Source: Microsoft
