What is Microsoft Copilot – and what does it cost?

Short answer

Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft’s AI assistant. It lives in the programs many people already use – Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams – and helps you write, summarise and find information. There’s a free version for chatting with the AI and a paid version that can also work with your own emails, documents and meetings.

What can Copilot do?

• Write: Draft emails, texts and presentations.
• Summarise: Give a short summary of a long email thread, a document or a Teams meeting.
• Find: Search across your email, files and chats and pull the answer together.
• Calculate and analyse: Help with formulas and overviews in Excel.

In short, Copilot is a personal assistant for the individual employee.

Free or paid – what’s the difference?

• Copilot Chat (free for most business users): An AI chat similar to ChatGPT, but with Microsoft’s security for business accounts. It doesn’t automatically know your own emails and files.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot (paid per user per month): Works inside the programs and can use your own data – email, documents, calendar and meetings – that the user already has access to.

The price changes regularly and depends on your agreement with Microsoft, so check the current price with Microsoft or your IT supplier. Do the maths: the price is multiplied by the number of users, and the value depends on whether people actually use it.

When is Copilot enough – and when isn’t it?

Copilot is a good choice when you want to give every employee a faster day with email, documents and meetings.

Copilot isn’t enough when you want a whole workflow to run better. Copilot helps the person but doesn’t take over the process. It doesn’t know on its own how you prepare a quote, which prices apply in your ERP system, or who needs to approve.

That’s where an AI agent is often the right choice: an AI program built for one specific task and connected directly to your own systems. Read more in the guide What is an AI agent?.

Three questions before you buy Copilot for everyone

1. Which tasks should it solve? Write down 3–5 concrete tasks before you buy.
2. Is your data in order? Copilot finds whatever the employee has access to. If file permissions are messy, people may suddenly find things they shouldn’t see.
3. Who will use it? Start with a small group, measure the effect, then expand.

How BCT helps

We help you work out where Copilot makes sense and where a custom solution delivers more. Our AI agent Relay works in Outlook and turns customer emails into ready-made quotes and orders in your ERP – something Copilot doesn’t do on its own. If you’d like the big picture first, we start with a Shadow Walk at your premises.

See Relay → · Read about the Shadow Walk →

Frequently asked questions

Is Copilot the same as ChatGPT?

No, but they’re similar. Copilot is Microsoft’s AI and is built into the Microsoft 365 apps.

Can Copilot see all our documents?

The paid version can see what the individual user already has access to – no more, no less.

Is Copilot safe to use?

With a business account, data is handled under Microsoft’s business terms. Still, make sure file permissions are cleaned up.

When is an AI agent better than Copilot?

When you want to automate a whole workflow – for example from customer email to quote – connected to your own systems.

In short

Microsoft Copilot is an AI assistant inside the programs many people already use every day. The free version is good for chatting with the AI, while the paid version can also work with your own emails, documents and meetings.

Copilot helps the individual employee, but it doesn’t change whole workflows on its own. Test it with a small group, find out where it actually saves time, and then decide who should have it.