Microsoft has unveiled its latest subscription service called Microsoft 365 Copilot, introducing artificial intelligence (AI) functionalities to widely-used Office applications such as Word, Excel, and Teams. 

This service will be available at an extra cost of $30 per month, potentially leading to an increase of up to 83 percent in monthly prices for enterprise customers. The objective behind this initiative is to generate additional revenue through recurring subscriptions.

Microsoft Copilot empowers users to utilize AI capabilities, encompassing tasks such as prioritizing incoming emails, summarizing meetings, analyzing spreadsheet data, providing writing prompts, and creating presentations. 

The service leverages generative AI technology and is deeply rooted in users' business data stored in the Microsoft Graph, which includes emails, calendars, chats, and documents. Microsoft ensures users that Copilot adheres to their established security, privacy, and compliance policies for Microsoft 365.

While Microsoft has not disclosed a specific timeline for the public release of the service, it is currently undergoing testing by 600 enterprise customers, including Goodyear and General Motors. This subscription offering is a part of Microsoft's continuous endeavors to augment its Office software suite and make it increasingly attractive to businesses that aim to incorporate AI into their workflows.

As technology giants such as Microsoft, Google, and IBM vie to offer generative AI tools for consumers, Microsoft's launch of Microsoft 365 Copilot aims to provide businesses with AI-driven functionalities to enhance tasks like document summaries, email generation, and Excel analysis, among others.

The subscription fee of $30 per user per month for Microsoft 365 Copilot represents a substantial premium compared to existing Microsoft 365 plans. For instance, businesses currently subscribed to Microsoft 365 E3 will see their costs nearly double, while Microsoft 365 Business Standard subscribers will face costs that almost triple. 

The higher pricing of Microsoft 365 Copilot can be attributed to Microsoft's significant investment in expanding its AI-powered offerings, including a multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI. Furthermore, the growing demand for Nvidia GPUs to support AI features has contributed to increased costs.