Microsoft is renaming its major chatbot for companies, ramping up efforts to influence folks to make use of the software program maker’s closest rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Microsoft Copilot will change into Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, the corporate mentioned on Wednesday, the second rebranding because the AI assistant debuted in 2023 as Bing Chat Enterprise.
The chatbot, which is free to all patrons of Microsoft’s major office software program bundle, can synthesise information pulled from the net, analyse paperwork and recommend replies to customer support calls, amongst different issues. However the assistant has taken a again seat to different Copilots embedded in particular person productiveness apps like Phrase and Excel, in accordance with Jared Spataro, who oversees Microsoft’s office AI instruments.
“Most individuals don’t know that they do have it and it’s not one thing that we’ve carried out a whole lot of advertising and marketing round,” he mentioned. “We undoubtedly wished to lift the visibility.”
The assistant, which may be accessed in an internet browser or smartphone app, has some limitations. It could’t transcribe a Microsoft Groups convention name or prioritise unread messages in an e-mail inbox. These duties and others that faucet into Microsoft’s ubiquitous office purposes require a subscription to Microsoft 365 Copilot, which prices customers US$30/month.
However Spataro mentioned Microsoft was beefing up the capabilities of the chat-window-based Copilot, together with letting customers entry brokers, autonomous bots programmed to carry out particular duties like fetching buyer account particulars or technical specs.
Pricing
The corporate will cost customers a nominal sum for such entry. For instance, a request for a customized reply from the agent’s underlying massive language mannequin will value $0.02 whereas tapping into Microsoft app information will value $0.30.
The pricing seems to undercut Salesforce, which is pushing its personal set of brokers that the corporate says will initially value about $2 per dialog. ServiceNow, Workday, HubSpot and SAP are additionally among the many cadre of software program corporations now emphasising AI bots able to fetching data and taking actions on a person’s behalf.
Learn: Microsoft’s eye-popping information centre funding plans
Microsoft’s providing is “an on-ramp and a simple strategy to get began with no to low dedication”, Spataro mentioned. — Matt Day, with Brody Ford, (c) 2025 Bloomberg LP
Get breaking information from TechCentral on WhatsApp. Join right here.
