Contents hide
1. All of the Copilots
2. So, where does Copilot Pro fit in?
3. What do you get with Copilot Pro?
4. What can you do with Copilot Pro?
5. How much is Copilot Pro?
6. Is Copilot Pro included in Microsoft 365?
7. Is Copilot Pro worth it?
8. Copilot Feedback

All of the Copilots

Copilot is the name Microsoft have given to their Large Language Model (LLM) based suite of AI tools. This new type of generative AI tooling is based on the Chat GPT technology produced by Open AI (in which Microsoft made early investments).

There are many different “implementations” of Copilot:

  • Copilot for Microsoft 365: Specifically designed for Microsoft 365 applications, enhancing features and automating tasks.
  • Copilot for Dynamics 365: Tailored for business applications, aiding in data analysis and customer engagement.
  • Microsoft Security Copilot: Focuses on integrating with security systems to provide intelligent protection and insights.
  • Microsoft Sales Copilot: A specialized tool for sales teams to enhance their productivity and customer interactions.
  • Microsoft Copilot for Service: Aimed at customer service, providing AI assistance for support and engagement.
  • GitHub Copilot: An AI tool for developers, assisting in coding and development tasks.

But even if you have one of these there are differences in how Copilot is implemented depending on the specific product in which you are using it.

For example, if you are using Copilot in Word, it is tuned to give answers more geared towards content creation. If you use it in Excel, it is tuned for mathematical style responses etc.

I really recommend reading the following blog that does a great job of explaining these differences in implementations.

So, where does Copilot Pro fit in?

Originally Copilot was limited as a restricted trial to large enterprises that had M365 subscriptions, and could purchase a minimum of 300 seats. Smaller businesses and consumers couldn’t join in all of the fun.

Microsoft did then implement a version of its Chat-GPT engine for web search and make it available for business as Bing Chat Enterprise, and for consumers as Bing Chat. This was then subsequently rebranded to just Copilot.

In January of 2024, Microsoft were ready to take off some of the training wheels for Copilot and removed the Enterprise & 300 seat restrictions and also unveiled Copilot Pro aimed at consumers.

So Copilot Pro is similar to the Copilot for Microsoft 365, but without the enterprise orientated features. These are things like specific data access controls and audit capabilities that are tied to it’s use in against a tenant (that provides the security and data boundaries).

That said it does unlock most of the features that users might want across the Office suite (requires a suitable version of Office, and so best pairs with Microsoft 365 home or family for the average home user).

What do you get with Copilot Pro?

The Copilot Pro license unlocks access to Copilot in the office suite (where you are signed in with the licensed user account). This includes:

  • Word
  • Excel
  • Outlook
  • OneNote

You can also interact with Copilot on the web through your browser (like Bing Chat).

Behind the scenes in these interactions you will get priority access to the GPT-4, GPT-4 Turbo engines, while the free editions are based on the GPT-3.5 implementation.

You also have access to DALL-E 3 for image generation with the capacity to use “boosts” for faster operations.

What can you do with Copilot Pro?

Copilot is indented to be your digital companion/assistant so it should be able to make running your life in front of a computer (or mobile!) easier.

Your use cases may vary but I have been making an effort to use Copilot (in it’s different incarnations) to learn more about how and where it best works.

Web searching – Searching the web with Copilot (as long as you check references) has been a great help, it is very handy to be able to pull together summaries of information, or search our obscure facts that would previously take quite a bit of time to trawl through queries and pages. This has been my favourite use case so far.

For Fun – It can also be a lot of fun to generate silly images and the like with Copilot when having chats with friends for example making up a picture of a pair of Crocs with caravans pins in, or helping generate a poem about something.

My love is like a clover,
In rich soil, it spread and took over.
It grew fast, quite unplanned,
With each leaf, a new strand,
In hearts’ gardens, blooming all over.
AI generated picture of Croc shoes with caravan badges

Working on documents – I’ve personally had less success working on documents with Copilot so far, and this may be a challenge of Pro vs for Enterprise as Enterprise will have a larger pool of sauce materials to pull from. I did try and ask Copilot in Word some questions to help with this document and had limited success, however asking the same questions to Copilot Chat (on the web) produced much better results when searching for information I can then add to the document.

Some recent examples of my use cases:

How much is Copilot Pro?

In the United States Copilot Pro costs $20 per month, and it is similar in other territories such as £19 for the UK.

You pay for it monthly and it can be cancelled at any point unlike the Enterprise plans that require 1 year upfront.

Is Copilot Pro included in Microsoft 365?

Copilot Pro is not included as part of the Microsoft 365 Family or Microsoft 365 Personal plans.

You do not need to have one of these plans to purchase Copilot Pro but it may be required to unlock access to it in various Office applications.

Copilot Pro is also not included in the Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans, as it is not aimed at business users – they have their own Copilot add-on license that can be purchased to unlock similar functionality.

Is Copilot Pro worth it?

I’ve enjoyed my few weeks working alongside Copilot, and I think over time I will appreciate Copilot’s help more inside documents as I get better about asking it the right questions, and I certainly appreciate not having to stare at blank pages for long. It is much easier to correct something that clearly isn’t correct or quite what I want, than it is to start from scratch.

Is that worth $20 a month – it really comes down to a cost saving calculation, how much time will Copilot save you over the course of a month? Well, lets ask Copilot:

To determine how much time $20 is worth based on average salaries, we can use the concept of the time value of money. This concept suggests that the value of money is tied to the time it can save or earn you.

Let’s consider an average hourly wage to make this calculation. For example, if the average hourly wage is $25, then $20 would equate to approximately 0.8 hours (or 48 minutes) of work.

Here’s the calculation in a simple formula:

Time Saved=Hourly WageMoney Value

So for $20:

Time Saved=2520=0.8 hours

This means that if a service or product saves you at least 48 minutes of work time in a month and your time is worth $25 per hour, then spending $20 on it could be considered worth the cost.

Keep in mind that this is a simplified example and actual calculations would need to take into account factors such as taxes, the exact salary, and personal valuation of time.

For me, certainly so far it’s helping me out and keeping me entertained and probably saving me those 48 minutes (if that offsets my time lost due to curiosity that is!) 🙂

Copilot Feedback

As this technology is so new, I’d love to hear from people about what they found did or didn’t work in their own experiences and tests with Copilot. Please do leave a comment or find me on socials to discuss.