Microsoft has launched a pay-as-you-go plan for corporate customers, dubbed Copilot Chat, which bundles several AI-powered productivity features for Microsoft 365. This new plan is designed to provide a more flexible and affordable alternative to its existing Copilot Business Chat, which has been met with mixed reviews from customers.

Copilot Chat leverages OpenAI's GPT-4o AI model, enabling users to ask business-related questions, build workflow automations, generate images, and more. While these capabilities were previously part of Microsoft 365 Copilot, the new plan offers a more accessible pricing structure. A license for Microsoft 365 Copilot costs $30 per user per month, whereas Copilot Chat's features will be priced on a "metered basis," with users only paying for the services they use.

According to Microsoft, Copilot Chat "adds pay-as-you-go [services] to our existing free chat experience for Microsoft 365 commercial customers." The company aims to make AI more accessible to organizations of all sizes, touting Copilot Chat as a "powerful new on-ramp for everyone in [an] organization to build the AI habit."

The Copilot Chat plan's features are housed within the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, a rebranding of the Microsoft 365 app. From the app, users can interact with Copilot, Microsoft's chatbot experience, to summarize key points in an uploaded file, draft a work document, or create an AI-generated image. Additionally, users can collaborate on projects with teammates and AI via the built-in Copilot Pages tool.

One of the key selling points of Copilot Chat is its task automation features, which Microsoft describes as "agentic." Using the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, users can launch "agents" to automate basic tasks, such as providing account details before a sales meeting or delivering instructions to a field service worker. IT admins can build org-wide agents and manage their deployment, as well as govern the access and security of individual agents.

Notably, Copilot Chat lacks several features available in Microsoft 365 Copilot, including prebuilt agents and AI-powered capabilities for Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Copilot Chat users also do not have access to personalization options or Microsoft's recently introduced Copilot Analytics tool to measure company-wide AI usage.

Industry observers believe that Copilot Chat is Microsoft's attempt to convince holdouts to adopt Microsoft 365 Copilot by offering a more affordable and flexible option. Microsoft 365 Copilot has faced criticism for being inefficient, costly, and insecure for many organizations. According to a recent Gartner survey, only 3.3% of IT leaders reported that Copilot has provided significant value to their employers.

In an internal memo, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella emphasized the company's focus on "[AI] model-forward applications" that "reshape all application categories" in 2025. Nadella expressed confidence in Microsoft's ability to capitalize on the AI era, citing the company's two-year head start in developing the necessary systems, app platform, and tools.

The launch of Copilot Chat marks a significant shift in Microsoft's AI strategy, as the company seeks to make AI more accessible and appealing to a broader range of customers. As the AI landscape continues to evolve, it remains to be seen how Copilot Chat will be received by the market and whether it will help Microsoft regain momentum in the AI-powered productivity space.