Microsoft’s efforts to monetize its huge investments in generative AI are now catching up with consumers.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the price of the company’s 365 service is going up in regions including Australia and parts of Asia due to the inclusion of the company’s Copilot AI assistant.
Charging for Copilot isn’t new; the company already requires enterprises to pay $30 a month per user. But now Copilot is a feature in some editions of Microsoft’s 365 service, which includes popular apps such as Word, PowerPoint, Teams and Excel. The AI helper, which features technology from ChatGPT maker OpenAI, in which Microsoft has invested about $14 billion, is getting integrated with these apps. Microsoft is also competing against other companies including Apple, Google and Anthropic that have their own versions of rapidly evolving AI software.
Even as it uses technology such as ChatGPT 4, Copilot is viewed by Microsoft as a competitor as well.
According to the Wall Street Journal story, the Copilot chatbot is lagging well behind ChatGPT in the number of downloads of its app, at 37 million downloads compared to 433 million from May 2023 to mid-December 2024.
Reviews of Copilot as standalone software have been mixed and the company has faced a PR challenge over a Copilot AI feature called Recall, which has raised privacy and security concerns. Recall, however, isn’t a 365 feature; it’s a Windows 11 Copilot feature that also relies on AI technology.
In Australia, the monthly price of 365 is going up from A$11 to A$16, a 45% increase. In the US, Microsoft’s enterprise customers can expect a 5% increase for 365 Copilot starting in April.
Microsoft did not respond immediately to an email query about the price increases for 365.