Microsoft has revealed the pricing details for Copilot and introduced new generative AI capabilities during its annual Inspire event for resellers. The company announced that Copilot, a powerful AI assistant, will be accessible to customers at a monthly rate of $30 per user for Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard, and Business Premium customers. This innovative assistant operates across Microsoft’s suite of business productivity and collaboration apps, automating tasks and generating content. It can analyze Excel data, design PowerPoint presentations, and provide summaries of Teams meetings.
The pricing will be applicable once Copilot is broadly available, though no specific timeline has been shared yet. Currently, around 600 global enterprise customers are participating in the early access program.
Furthermore, besides the introduction of Copilot, Microsoft has gracefully revealed the grand expansion of Bing Chat through the splendid inauguration of Bing Chat Enterprise, accompanied by the inception of Visual Search.Bing Chat Enterprise is a specialized version of Microsoft’s AI-powered chat feature, catering to work-specific needs. Users can ask questions and receive answers from GPT-4, the OpenAI Large Language Model, which Microsoft has heavily invested in since late 2022. The chat feature is grounded in web data and provides verifiable answers with citations, along with visual answers containing graphs, charts, and images. Microsoft ensures data protection by not saving any chat data or using it to train the underlying LLM model. The company also does not have eyes-on access to view the data used for powering the tool.
Bing Chat Enterprise is presently being introduced in its preview phase, and it is provided without any supplementary charges to Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard, and Business Premium subscribers. In due course, it will be made accessible as a standalone option, priced at $5 per user per month.
Moreover, Bing Chat will soon allow users to leverage OpenAI’s GPT-4 model for Visual Search. By uploading a picture to Chat, users can search for similar content or prompt Bing to provide more context or answer questions related to the image. Visual Search is already available via desktop and the Bing mobile app, with plans to bring it to Bing Chat Enterprise in the future.
Apart from these advancements, Microsoft has introduced a new role-based copilot called Sales Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 offerings. Unlike the previously released Microsoft 365 Copilot and Dynamics 365 Copilot, Sales Copilot is tailored specifically for sellers. It can be accessed through tools like Outlook, Teams, and Dynamics 365 Sales. The new Sales Copilot is essentially a rebranding of Viva Sales with additional generative AI features. Dynamics 365 Copilot offers generative AI features in the enterprise edition of business applications and includes Sales Copilot. Nonetheless, alternative versions of Dynamics 365 shall necessitate distinct licensing for Sales Copilot, especially when utilized in conjunction with Salesforce and other third-party systems.
Sales Copilot boasts several capabilities, including creating contextual emails based on Dynamics 365 Sales data, providing summaries by combining customer data from Outlook, Teams, and Dynamics 365 before sales meetings, and offering real-time tips during Teams meetings. It can also connect to other CRM systems like Salesforce via connectors. The Sales Copilot has now been made accessible to all, presenting itself as an independent subscription or an inclusion within the esteemed Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise and Premium licenses, without incurring any additional charges.
Furthermore, Microsoft has integrated customer data and customer journey orchestration capabilities into Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, aiming to consolidate all relevant marketing data in one platform. Enterprises can utilize the Copilot within Dynamics 365 Customer Insights to orchestrate contextually relevant customer journeys across marketing, sales, and service using natural language prompts. The same Copilot can also be employed to style emails, forms, and event registration pages to align perfectly with brand guidelines, all through natural language commands.
These new Copilot capabilities will be available for preview next month and are expected to be generally available by September this year, with inclusion in the 365 Customer Insights subscription.