Microsoft has unveiled CoPilot Pro, a premium version of its CoPilot AI application that amps up the AI-powered usefulness of the app to include much more direct access to text and image generation, relegating non-Pro users to only access these features in non-peak times.
The new CoPilot Pro also adds CoPilot assistance to Microsoft 365, including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and OneNote, allowing you “to create, edit, and communicate faster.”
CoPilot is Microsoft’s fairly new AI assistant that originally launched as Bing Chat only last year, in February 2023, merely months after it bought Chat GPT. The addition of AI to its Bing local search enabled users to more naturally interact with their computers to find the right files and settings, as well as find answers to many of life’s crucial questions.
Following this, Microsoft decided to rebrand its AI efforts into a singular CoPilot brand, culminating in it announcing at the start of this year that new Microsoft devices with keyboards would now include a CoPilot key for quickly accessing the CoPilot services. Something we saw in the many gaming laptops at CES 2024.
Currently, CoPilot is being rolled out to Windows 11 devices for free, though not all devices and regions yet have the update and you will need to be logging on to your device with a Microsoft account to access it – local logins won’t work.
Now, with its AI efforts expanding ever more, the company has added a premium tier to its previous free AI service. The difference between the tiers is summarised below:
| Copilot | Copilot Pro |
| For everyone who wants to find the right information, create unique content, and get things done faster. With your free Microsoft account, you can: | For those looking for accelerated performance and creativity capabilities, Copilot Pro supercharges your Copilot experience. This monthly subscription includes everything in Copilot, plus: |
| Use Copilot on the web and in Windows, macOS, and iPadOS | Gain priority access to GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo including during peak times for accelerated performance to get things done faster |
| Access GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo during non-peak times | Access Copilot in select Microsoft 365 apps to draft documents, summarize emails, create presentations, and more |
| Use text, voice, and images in conversational search | Create AI images with DALL-E 3 in landscape format even faster with 100 boosts per day with Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator) |
| Create AI images with 15 boosts per day with Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator) | |
| Use plug-ins and GPTs | |
| Use free version of Copilot |
The CoPilot Pro price is $20 a month, which seems quite high to us, considering it doesn’t offer a huge number of truly unique features. That said, we’ve not had much of a play with the free tier of CoPilot to judge just how limiting it might be if you’re regularly generating AI content.
Have you tried CoPilot yet? What do you make of it and would you be tempted by a premium tier? Let us know your thoughts on our Facebook and X pages or carry on reading more on that new CoPilot key.