Microsoft launches Copilot Pro with custom GPTs and Office integration

Copilot Pro brings business-level functionality to everyone, but it’ll cost $20 per month.

Microsoft is launching Copilot Pro, a $20 subscription service bridging the gap between enterprise and free offerings for the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) assistance suite. 

The new service will bring to subscribers many features previously only available for enterprise customers, including native integration with Office software, including Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.

Copilot Pro will also feature access to “Copilot GPT Builder,” an interface that allows users to build and enable their own chatbot personas.

Related: ChatGPT launches new feature that lets subscribers make their own GPTs

Evidently, the news was revealed a bit early. Microsoft posted a video to YouTube announcing the launch of Copilot Pro on Jan. 12. It only had 532 views as of the time of this article’s publishing.

Meanwhile, journalists on social media have indicated that news of the Copilot Pro launch was being kept under embargo until 11:00 pm Eastern Time on Jan. 15.

Copilot Pro news isn't supposed to be live for another 12 hours

— Zac Bowden (@zacbowden) January 15, 2024

Cointelegraph received no embargoed news ahead of this article, but the official YouTube video from Microsoft contains the product details and the subscription costs have been confirmed.

Microsoft did not immediately return a request for comment.

The new subscription service joins Copilot Azure, which is currently offered on a trial basis, and Copilot for Microsoft 365, a subscription costing teams using the eponymous software $30 per user.

OpenAI, the company behind the AI models powering Copilot Pro, has also added new subscription offerings for its ChatGPT service. These include ChatGPT Pro, launched in January 2023, and the more recently launched ChatGPT Team service.

While a direct comparison isn’t possible yet, Copilot Pro will reportedly have similar features to ChatGPT Pro for the same cost, with the major difference being Office integration.

It’s unclear at this time if Copilot users without a subscription will continue to have unfettered access to the newest models (GPT 4, GPT with vision, etc.). It bears mention that the same models are withheld from ChatGPT users without a ChatGPT Pro subscription. It seems likely Microsoft will follow suit.