(Reuters) – Microsoft said on Thursday that it is now including Copilot AI features to its Microsoft 365 suite for individual consumers, a day after it rolled out on-demand AI agents for businesses.
The Windows-maker will give its customers an option to either choose a Microsoft 365 subscription plan with Copilot AI features or one without it.
It will also increase the prices of subscription plans in the U.S. by $3.
Copilot will assist users in a host of apps in the Microsoft 365 suite — Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote and Designer. However, the usage of Copilot AI will be capped by monthly credits, which it believes would suffice for most users.
Microsoft will also give users the options to enable or disable Copilot where AI assistance is not desired — such as in academic scenarios like exams and submissions. It also said the user-inputed prompts will not be used to train its models.
The company has been under pressure to show that its big bet on AI, which includes investment in OpenAI and its plans to spend about $80 billion during its current fiscal year on data centers and AI infrastructure, will pay off.
These moves also come at a time when observers have become skeptical about Copilot’s usage. Last year, a Gartner report raised doubts about its adoption, which led Microsoft to push its uptake.
(Reporting by Rishi Kant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
