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It’s no secret that Microsoft has been struggling to sell its Copilot AI assistant to businesses. The steep pricing has put many businesses off paying extra for Microsoft’s AI services, especially when OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been gaining traction in the all-important enterprise market. Microsoft is now getting ready to tempt more businesses into paying for Copilot, with a familiar trick: bundling.
Microsoft currently offers business Copilot access for $30 per user per month, and if you want the extra Copilot for Sales, Service, and Finance options, these have been a standalone extra $20 per user. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s AI plans tell me that the company is about to ax this standalone $20 add-on and bundle Copilot for Sales, Service, and Finance into the main Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription.
This move will take the price of most of Microsoft’s top AI tools down to $30 per user per month, instead of the $50 per user per month businesses have to pay for Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot for Sales, Service, and Finance together — essentially giving away the add-on.
Microsoft is positioning this change as a way to simplify its Copilot subscriptions for businesses, I’m told. It makes it easier for Microsoft’s vast sales teams to convince customers to buy just a single Microsoft 365 Copilot license, instead of the confusing mix of add-ons.
This monetization strategy change is part of a broader AI shakeup across the Microsoft 365 Copilot team and the Business and Industry Copilot (BIC) teams. Charles Lamanna and his BIC team — which focuses on Copilot inside business apps, low-code platforms, and other industry-specific tools — moved closer to the Microsoft 365 Copilot side of the company in June, in what was a big step in consolidating Microsoft’s various business Copilot offerings. This week, Lamanna announced internally that Microsoft’s Copilot, Agents, and Platform Ecosystem (CAPE) team is also joining BIC, as part of an effort to “bring more business value into the broader M365 agent platform.”
Microsoft is increasingly stepping up its focus on AI agents, much like the rest of the tech industry. Lamanna’s BIC team is currently building out an Agent 365 team, led by Nirav Shah, a 24-year veteran at Microsoft. Agent 365 is being developed as a set of tools to manage AI agents and ensure the security and compliance requirements of businesses are met. The Microsoft Admin Center (MAC) teams are also joining the Agent 365 team, under Shah.
“This is critical to launching Agent 365 later this year,” said Lamanna in his memo. “As agents become part of the workforce, the Microsoft Admin Center will need to evolve into the central hub where both people and agents are managed by IT departments.”
Sources tell me Microsoft is planning to announce Agent 365 at its Ignite conference later this year. The introduction of Agent 365 and the pricing shakeup for Copilot means Microsoft is now focused on three areas of monetizing Copilot: Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Dynamics 365.
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