Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft's family of AI assistants — the most widely distributed AI on the planet, built into Windows, Edge, Bing, and the Microsoft 365 apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams) used by over a billion people at work. It began as Bing Chat in February 2023, one of the first GPT-4-powered consumer chatbots. In September 2023 it was unified under the Copilot brand. FY26 Q1: ~150M MAU (all surfaces), ~20M paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats (FY26 Q3).
Two products under one brand: (1) Copilot (free consumer) at copilot.microsoft.com — chat, model picker, image gen, Copilot Voice and Vision, memory, personalisation, Windows and Edge integration; (2) Microsoft 365 Copilot (paid, work-grounded) — embedded in Office apps, grounded in organisation data via Microsoft Graph. The key differentiator vs ChatGPT/Gemini is placement — AI already where people work, with direct access to files, emails, and meetings.
Multi-model engine (unique on the market): Microsoft is not dependent on a single vendor — Copilot routes among OpenAI GPT-5.x (GPT-5.2 in consumer chat, GPT-5.5 and GPT-5.5 Reasoning in M365 Copilot), Anthropic Claude (Sonnet for general queries, Opus for structured deep-reasoning tasks — Anthropic became a Microsoft subprocessor on 7 January 2026, and from 3 April 2026 admins can set Claude as the default), and Microsoft's own MAI models (MAI-1 mixture-of-experts, MAI-Voice-1, MAI-Thinking-1, MAI-Code-1-Flash — the MAI family debuted August 2025). In the Researcher agent GPT writes the draft and Claude reviews it — models collaborate.
Key 2026 features: Copilot in Office (Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Outlook/Teams/OneNote/Loop), Researcher (deep-research agent) and Analyst (data-scientist agent with Python), Copilot Chat, Copilot Pages (live canvas), Copilot Notebooks, Copilot Vision (sees screen + camera), Copilot Voice (real-time conversation with MAI-Voice-1), Mico (avatar), Real Talk (challenges assumptions), Groups (32 people chat together), Learn Live (voice-first tutoring). Windows Copilot key + Hey Copilot wake word + Edge Copilot Mode. Copilot Studio for low-code agent builders — computer-using agents GA May 2026. Fall Release 22-23 Oct 2025 introduced Mico, Groups, Real Talk, Learn Live, Memory, Edge Actions, Connectors, Copilot for health.
Pricing (mid-2026, USD): Free (Copilot consumer — USD 0, GPT-5.2 + MAI, Voice/Vision/memory/image gen). Microsoft 365 Premium (individual — USD 19.99/mo, replaced the retired Copilot Pro in late 2025, Copilot in desktop Office apps). Microsoft 365 Copilot Business (USD 18-21/user/mo, promo USD 18 until 31.12.2026, up to 300 users). Microsoft 365 Copilot Enterprise (USD 30/user/mo, requires M365 E3/E5/Business Standard/Premium base, Researcher+Analyst+Copilot Studio+advanced admin). E7 Frontier Suite (USD 99/user/mo, from 1.05.2026, bundle M365 E5+Copilot+Agent 365). Warning: every paid tier sits on top of a base M365 licence — the true cost is often 2-3× higher than the add-on alone.
