Microsoft Copilot
The AI button in every Office app, if you pay for the license
What is Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft's AI assistant family — the free consumer Copilot on the web and Microsoft 365 Copilot, the paid add-on that lives inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. The M365 version is gated behind a qualifying Microsoft 365 business or enterprise license and is capped at 300 users for the small-business add-on. Mostly bought by organizations standardized on Microsoft.
General AI assistants for research, writing, analysis, planning, and daily knowledge work.
See the full AI Assistants guide to compare more tools, buyer criteria, and related workflows.
Use cases to evaluate
Summarizing Teams meetings and surfacing action items
Drafting Outlook replies and triaging crowded inboxes
Building Excel formulas and pivot analyses from natural language
Generating PowerPoint first drafts from Word docs
Fit to evaluate
Microsoft 365 enterprise customers
Knowledge workers stuck in Outlook and Teams all day
IT teams standardizing on a single vendor stack
Finance and ops teams heavy in Excel
Business fit
Right for you if your company runs Outlook, Teams, and Excel as its operating system and you want meeting recaps, email triage, and formula help without leaving those apps. Skip if you're a Google Workspace shop or a small team unwilling to pay $18/user/mo on top of an existing M365 seat. The Teams meeting summary feature alone tends to be the trigger for IT to greenlight rollout.
How to evaluate Microsoft Copilot
Use this category when your team needs a broad AI workspace before buying a narrower point solution.
Confirm the exact workflow
Map Microsoft Copilot to one concrete workflow first, such as summarizing teams meetings and surfacing action items. Avoid buying before the owner, trigger, output, and success metric are clear.
Check category fit
Compare model quality on real company tasks, not demo prompts.
Compare practical alternatives
Shortlist Microsoft Copilot against ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini so the decision is based on fit, effort, and workflow ownership rather than brand recognition alone.
Validate cost and rollout effort
Consumer Copilot free on web and mobile. Microsoft 365 Copilot $18/user/mo paid yearly (or $25.20/user/mo monthly) — requires a separate qualifying M365 subscription. Promotional pricing through June 2026. Also confirm implementation time, support needs, and whether the easy setup matches your team.
Compare Microsoft Copilot with alternatives
Use this quick comparison before booking demos or moving data into a new system.
| Primary workflow | Summarizing Teams meetings and surfacing action items, Drafting Outlook replies and triaging crowded inboxes |
|---|---|
| Best-fit team | Microsoft 365 enterprise customers, Knowledge workers stuck in Outlook and Teams all day |
| Implementation effort | Easy setup and maintenance profile |
| Pricing check | Free plan + paid plans |
| Closest alternatives | ChatGPTClaudeGeminiPerplexity |
Microsoft Copilot pricing
| Model | Free plan + paid plans |
|---|---|
| Snapshot | Consumer Copilot free on web and mobile. Microsoft 365 Copilot $18/user/mo paid yearly (or $25.20/user/mo monthly) — requires a separate qualifying M365 subscription. Promotional pricing through June 2026. |
| Checked |
Common questions about Microsoft Copilot
What is Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft's AI assistant family — the free consumer Copilot on the web and Microsoft 365 Copilot, the paid add-on that lives inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. The M365 version is gated behind a qualifying Microsoft 365 business or enterprise license and is capped at 300 users for the small-business add-on. Mostly bought by organizations standardized on Microsoft.
What is Microsoft Copilot used for?
Common use cases: Summarizing Teams meetings and surfacing action items; Drafting Outlook replies and triaging crowded inboxes; Building Excel formulas and pivot analyses from natural language; Generating PowerPoint first drafts from Word docs.
How much does Microsoft Copilot cost?
Consumer Copilot free on web and mobile. Microsoft 365 Copilot $18/user/mo paid yearly (or $25.20/user/mo monthly) — requires a separate qualifying M365 subscription. Promotional pricing through June 2026.
Who is Microsoft Copilot best for?
Microsoft Copilot fits Microsoft 365 enterprise customers, Knowledge workers stuck in Outlook and Teams all day, IT teams standardizing on a single vendor stack, Finance and ops teams heavy in Excel. Right for you if your company runs Outlook, Teams, and Excel as its operating system and you want meeting recaps, email triage, and formula help without leaving those apps. Skip if you're a Google Workspace shop or a small team unwilling to pay $18/user/mo on top of an existing M365 seat. The Teams meeting summary feature alone tends to be the trigger for IT to greenlight rollout.
What are alternatives to Microsoft Copilot?
Common alternatives to Microsoft Copilot include ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Poe, You.com.