Summary
- Copilot Pro brings advanced Copilot features to individual users, unlocking functionalities in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote for Microsoft 365 subscribers.
- Subscribing to Copilot Pro grants users priority access to the latest AI models, faster AI image creation, and the ability to create custom Copilot GPTs for specific topics.
- Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now available to more customers, including Office 365 E3 and E5 subscribers, and can be purchased through Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider partners.
Microsoft is expanding the capabilities and availability of Copilot with the announcement of Copilot Pro, which brings more advanced Copilot features to more users. Copilot Pro is a subscription aimed at individuals, as opposed to Copilot for Microsoft 365, which is meant for organizations, and it unlocks new and better capabilities for those who rely heavily on Copilot.
Copilot Pro: A unified AI assistant across Microsoft products
Copilot Pro is meant to help you extract the most capabilities out of Microsoft Copilot, unlocking more advanced functionality, in addition to bringing it to more places. One of the headlining features is that Copilot Pro unlocks Copilot features in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers. Previously, these capabilities were only available to organizations through Copilot for Microsoft 365, but this makes them available to individual users, as long as they're willing to pay $20 per month per user.
In addition to this, Copilot Pro grants users with priority access to the latest AI models available, starting with GPT-4 Turbo today. GPT-4 Turbo means faster and better responses from Copilot, especially during peak times, when you'll have priority over other users. Plus, Microsoft will soon offer the ability to choose the model you want Copilot to use. Similarly, you also get faster AI image creation with the newly-renamed Image Creator from Designer (formerly known as Bing Image Creator). Copilot Pro includes 100 boosts per day to speed up image creation, while also providing higher-quality images and offering support for landscape orientation.
Finally, Microsoft is introducing the ability to create your own Copilot GPT, a tailored version of Copilot for whatever topic you want to focus on. This will be done through the Copilot GPT Builder, and all it will need is a "simple set of prompts", which should make it easier for anyone to create a custom Copilot for their own use case.
Copilot GPTs and new mobile apps
If you're wondering what a Copilot GPT is, that's another new feature Microsoft announced today. Starting today, Copilot will offer a handful of different GPTs focused on specific topics, like fitness or cooking. These are customized versions of Copilot to focus specifically on that topic, and in addition to the default ones, you'll be able to create your own, as mentioned above.
Microsoft also announced that Copilot is coming to mobile devices through a dedicated app, despite said app appearing on the Google Play Store at the end of last year. The Copilot app does what you'd expect it to do, with its usual chat capabilities using GPT-4, image generation with DALL-E 3, and the ability to use images from your phone when talking to Copilot. The app isn;t just available for Android, though, since iOS also has access to it.
And if you don't want a dedicated app, Copilot is also coming to mobile through the Microsoft 365 app. This integration allows you to export any content you create as a Word or PDF document so you can easily get work done on the go and share it from your phone.
Copilot for Microsoft 365 expands to more customers
Rounding out the news, Microsoft is announcing that Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now available to more customers. Previously, you had to have a Microsoft 365 subscription, but now, Copilot is also available for Office 365 E3 and E5 subscribers. On top of that, Microsoft has removed the 300-seat minimum requirement for Copilot for Microsoft 365, so you can buy the Copilot subscription package for a single user in your organization if you want to. This also effectively makes Copilot available to small and medium-sized businesses rather than just large corporations.
Microsoft has also announced that Copilot subscriptions can now be purchased through Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider partners, so you no longer have to buy directly from Microsoft.
It's increasingly clear that Microsoft believes Copilot is the future of how we interact with our devices and get things done, and this expansion in availability and capabilities is only driving that point home. Copilot is everywhere, and it's getting more powerful all the time. We'll likely continue hearing about it throughout the next few months, especially as companies start to ship laptops with a Copilot button.