Microsoft Adds Pay-as-you-go AI Agents to its Copilot Chatbot for Businesses

Microsoft is adding pay-as-you-go AI agents to the free version of its Copilot chatbot for Microsoft 365 commercial customers. These new on-demand agents are part of a new offering named Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, and they will be accessible right from the chat conversation and priced on a metered basis.

“Using natural language, now anyone can easily create agents to automate repetitive tasks and business processes – directly in Copilot Chat. A customer service representative can ask a CRM agent for account details before a customer meeting, while field service agents can access step-by-step instructions and real-time product knowledge,” Microsoft explained today.

Microsoft is not so great at naming its products, and to be clear, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat just brings new AI agents and IT controls to the free Copilot chatbot for Microsoft 365 commercial customers. These AI agents are also included with Microsoft 365 Copilot, the $30 per user per month add-on (on top of a qualifying Microsoft 365 commercial subscription) that unlocks Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps with access to all of a company’s meetings, emails, chats, and documents.

“Moving forward, every organization will have a mix of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot – our best-in-class offering – to drive AI transformation at scale,” the company explained. The comparison table below details the main differences between the new Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat offering and the existing Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on.

With Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, companies already using Microsoft 365 can let their employees create their own AI agents or let AI admins develop agents for the entire organization. Again, all these agents will priced on a metered basis, and they will be able to connect to third-party data using graph connectors. Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat also supports Enterprise Data Protection, and IT admins can control access to these AI agents via Microsoft’s Copilot Control System.

While Microsoft didn’t reveal pricing details for these AI agents, the company likely hopes to see companies dabbling with Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat to get hooked to these new AI capabilities and ultimately upgrade to its Microsoft 365 Copilot offering. “Copilot Chat is a powerful new on-ramp for everyone in your organization to build the AI habit with Copilot and agents,” the software giant said today.