Microsoft, one of the pioneering tech companies, has expanded its horizons, integrating artificial intelligence into its Office software. First made available to business users in November, these AI-imbued Office features are now also available to the general public. The tech giant has launched Copilot Pro, a subscription-based service that comes with a $20 monthly price tag, offering consumers a chance to explore Office apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint with AI-enhanced experiences.
Users already subscribed to Microsoft 365 Personal or Home plans can immediately leverage their existing widgets with the AI capabilities introduced in Copilot Pro, which is compatible with Mac, Windows, and iPad. Offering features ranging from chatbot-like PowerPoint slide deck generation prompts to text generation and document summarisation in Word, Copilot Pro promises a revolution in productivity and efficiency. Further, the offering extends to Excel (albeit in a preview version) and Outlook.com to provide help with data analysis, graph generation, email drafting, and much more.
While the majority of the features that business users have had access to for a couple of months will be available to the general public, the ability to use AI to generate a PowerPoint presentation from a Word document will remain a business-only feature at the moment due to the need for Microsoft’s Graph technology.
Apart from Office software integration, Copilot Pro users will have access to the latest OpenAI models, deliverables of the Image Creator from Designer (previously known as Bing Image Creator), and the ability to construct their own Copilot GPT. Those not currently subscribing to Microsoft 365 can still subscribe to Copilot Pro to enjoy priority access to GPT-4 Turbo inside Copilot for faster performance during peak times.
In addition, Copilot Pro subscribers will benefit from improved image creation through the integration of OpenAI’s DALL-E models, the quality of which promises significant enhancements. Moreover, Microsoft plans to soon include a new Copilot GPT Builder as part of the subscription, allowing users the development of a custom Copilot GPT - mirroring the variant launched for businesses in 2021.
In targeting Copilot Pro to power users, Microsoft intends to follow a strategy similar to OpenAI's, who offers its own subscriptions to ChatGPT with priority access and the latest models. The company is responding to the high demand from these users for increased access to the latest models, accelerated performance, and more innovative tools. This push towards constant improvement is evidenced in the robust set of features and added functionality housed in Copilot Pro, taking into account the demands of power users.
In order to gain access to the range of Office-related Copilot features across the web and in Office apps, a subscription to Microsoft 365 Personal or Family is necessary. It’s clear that Microsoft is committed to continually expanding Copilot Pro’s functionality, as they have done over the past year with their original product, Copilot (formerly Bing Chat).
In addition, Microsoft has lifted the existing 300-seat minimum for enterprise users imposed on its Copilot for Microsoft 365, making the product available to more businesses from today. Microsoft provides the option for companies to sign up for a subscription plan costing $30 per user, per month.
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