A deep dive introduction to Copilot and its licensing
This is the third article in our series on artificial intelligence (AI) concepts. This article examines Microsoft Copilot and its various forms, including their licensing options, ranging from free web chat to full-featured, enterprise-grade M365 Copilot. If you are new to AI, check out the first two articles to get an understanding of AI concepts.
What is Copilot?
Copilot is Microsoft's Generative AI solution, based on the foundational OpenAI large-language models (LLMs), such as GPT and DALL-E. Copilot comes in various forms, and its value proposition lies in its ability to gain personalisation context for each of its users using organisational data. The integration with productivity apps that users use every day—Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook—combined with the personalisation context, unlocks productivity, enabling staff to do more in less time.
Copilot offers features such as summarising long documents, drafting emails, creating new documents or presentations or finding things faster through Copilot Search. Copilot can be extended using agents. Microsoft provides many built-in agents, and custom ones can be developed using a low-code approach in Copilot Studio—more information on agents is provided below.
In technical speak, Copilot is a processing and orchestration engine that coordinates LLMs, Microsoft Graph (emails, chats, documents), and productivity apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook). Microsoft refers to it as the UI for AI.
Data is the lifeblood behind AI, and by combining LLMs with organisational content, Copilot offers a richer personalised experience not possible with other AI providers.
Copilots and their licensing
Copilot comes in various forms, ranging from a free web chat to a full-featured licensed M365 Copilot. The table outlines different Copilots and their licensing costs.
| Name | Description | Grounding Data Sources | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Copilot | This is the free Copilot available for the general public for web-based chat with usage restrictions, similar to ChatGPT. https://copilot.microsoft.com |
Web only | Free |
| Microsoft Copilot Pro | Microsoft Copilot to use with Microsoft 365 Personal subscriptions targeted at home/family consumers. The license provides access to newer AI models and the ability to work with Copilot in productivity apps, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. | Web and personal data in OneDrive | Paid license, requires M365 personal subscription |
| Free Microsoft 365 Copilot | The free Copilot for M365 business subscription customers. Business staff can use Copilot, grounded in web data, within the safe boundary of the M365 tenant. | Web only | Free for M365 business subscribers |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat | The free M365 Copilot outlined above with the added ability to chat with Copilot agents. Organisation staff can use built-in SharePoint agents or any custom-developed agents. This Copilot cannot be used with productivity apps, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. |
Web only + organisational data via built-in SharePoint agents or custom-developed agents | Metered pay-as-you-go plan, requires Azure subscription |
| Licensed Microsoft 365 Copilot | Microsoft's fully featured Copilot, grounded in organisational data using Microsoft Graph and integrated with productivity apps, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. https://m365copilot.com |
Web and organisational data using Microsoft Graph, with the ability to utilise Copilot agents connected to organisational or third-party data sources | Paid add-on license for M365 business/enterprise subscription customers |
| GitHub Copilot | GitHub CoPilot is the AI coding assistant and targeted at software developers. | GitHub code repositories | Multiple license options from individual developer plans, like GitHub Copilot Free, GitHub Copilot Pro, to enterprise plans like GitHub Copilot Business |
| M365 Security Copilot | Security CoPilot is targeted at security professionals. It integrates with Microsoft or non-Microsoft security products via plugins. | Global threat intelligence along with organisational data in Microsoft Defender, Sentinel | Consumption-based pricing model with an Azure subscription. No per-user licensing plan |
| Copilot Studio | Copilot Studio is part of Microsoft Power Platform, enabling the creation of custom Copilot agents using a low-code approach. Super users or developers can create agents connected to organisational data, such as SharePoint or OneDrive, or third-party data, like Salesforce, using connectors. | Organisational or third-party data sources through hundreds of available connectors | Two options: pre-paid monthly cost plan with fixed number of credits or pay-as-you-go metered plan using Azure subscription |
Data protection features of M365 CoPilot
The M365 Copilot value proposition for enterprises includes data security, privacy, and compliance capabilities. Copilot data (prompts, responses) is secured in the same manner as the rest of the organisational data in M365. Here are the main data protection features:
M365 Copilot is based on Microsoft's own Azure OpenAI service and not the public OpenAI. Azure OpenAI service is enriched with features such as scalability, responsible AI principles-based content filters (no harmful or adult content), and protections against AI security and copyright-based risks.
Organisational data remains within the M365 tenant boundary and is not used to train the AI LLM models.
Copilot respects existing data access controls, like permissions of documents in SharePoint. A user will only see responses from data that they have access to.
Copilot interactions data - prompts, responses - is saved as activity history. End users can clear their activity history from the M365 My Apps portal. Administrators can define retention policies for Copilot data and perform eDiscovery content searches in Microsoft Purview.
CoPilot agents
Agents are the Copilot extensibility framework, enabling its integration with a diverse range of data sources, including M365 sources such as SharePoint, Exchange, and Teams, as well as third-party-owned data sources.
Out-of-the-box agents
Microsoft provides numerous pre-built agents across M365 workloads. These agents can be customised in Copilot Studio. Examples include:
SharePoint site agents: Each site comes with its own agent, more below.
Facilitator agent in Teams that can take meeting notes or summarise Teams chats.
Interpreter agent in Teams meetings can translate meetings in real-time to another language.
Project Manager agent in Planner can create project plans and manage tasks.
Employee Self-Service agent can respond to HR queries from staff. This agent can connect to a SharePoint library as its data source or to third-party data sources, such as Workday and SAP, through connectors in Copilot Studio.
SharePoint agents
Each SharePoint site comes with a default Copilot agent named after the site title. The agent can be accessed from the Copilot icon in the top M365 bar. Users can create additional agents using the Copilot icon on the SharePoint library menu interface. Agents can be scoped to an entire library, specific folders or documents.
An agent is made of an .agent file that is stored in the same document library location where it is created. The file contains JSON code that defines the agent's parameters, including title, logo image, and data sources. This file can be managed like any other file in SharePoint; it can be copied, edited, or deleted.
Any user with edit rights on the site can create these SharePoint agents. Site Owners can configure any agent as the site’s default.
I hope this article and the entire series provided valuable information. For any queries or feedback, don’t hesitate to drop a message.