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Copilot Licensing Updates
A few months ago Invero hosted an episode of our Invero Show centered around all the different copilots, how they are licensed, what they should be doing, how they will be licensed, and how copilots can be customized or generate AI tools created in Azure. To view a recording, it can be found here: Microsoft 365 Copilot & OpenAI Licensing Explained & Where to Start – The Invero Show – YouTube. As a follow up to that webinar, I wanted to provide an update on changes that Microsoft has released as it relates to all of their copilots.
Copilot for M365
This is the license that most people think about when they hear copilot. This license includes the rights to use copilots for Word, Outlook, Excel, Teams, PowerPoint, Loop, Whiteboard, OneNote, Forms and Copilot Studio, as well as the publicly available Microsoft. Here are some updates related to Copilot for M365:
- Pre-requisite licenses have changed to include a lot more stand-alone licenses as well as the O365 licenses. Now a user with, for example, just Teams Enterprise could have a copilot for M365 license added to obtain the Teams copilot, but the cost would be for the entire suite.
- Copilot for Excel is still technically in preview and the GA roll out is scheduled to start in September 2024. Currently, Copilot for Excel will only work with data in a table format.
- The adoption rates have been lower than expected by Microsoft, so there are a few things they are doing on that front:
- Enterprise agreement customers can potentially take advantage of volume discounts by negotiating with their account management team. I’ve informally heard that discounting starts at around 10% for a purchase of 150 user licenses.
- More resources to assist IT teams with driving end user adoption have been released. There are prompt guides, end user trainings, dashboards to track usage, and email campaigns available for organizations to use to ensure they are seeing value from the cost of the licenses. The Success Kit can be downloaded here – Copilot Success Kit – Microsoft Adoption
- More copilots are in development including Viva copilots, Copilot Lab, video drafting in Clipchamp, Copilot in SharePoint, Copilot Compose and others, all set to roll out this fall.
- Copilot Studio is partially included in the M365 Copilot license. The end user portion is included, but there is still a capacity based license that will need to be added in increments of 25,000 messages per month.
Copilot for Security
This was made GA on April 1st, 2024, and with a different license model than was expected. Microsoft removed the licensing prerequisites, but the nature of this product means it will work better the more Microsoft security products are in use in your environment. Copilot for Security in managed and will be charged through the azure agreement in place. You pay based on your needs, and usage is measured in Security Compute Units (SCUs). The cost is $4 USD per hour, billed monthly, with a minimum of one hour of use. This one unit of SCUs billed for a full month would cost roughly $3,000 USD, and Microsoft recommends starting with 3 units. This makes for a costly solution meant to tailor insights coming from other security products and guide next steps.
Copilot for Sales and for Customer Service
These licenses are different from the Copilot for Dynamics 365, which is built in and included for D365 users. Both of these copilots are generally available for purchase through an EA or CSP agreement. The Sales license is meant for sales reps and connects to more CRM solutions than just D365 through connectors. It will assist a salesperson by entering in information during meetings quicker and easier into the CRM solution in use. The Customer Service license includes functionality to assist CS reps in pulling information from internal systems much faster while on support calls with customers to ensure a more pleasant experience for all involved. These licenses also include M365 copilot and cost roughly $50USD/user/month.
Other Copilots
These copilots are now generally available as well, and included with the licenses/workloads they support for no additional licensing costs:
- Copilot for Fabric – full functionality available with a Fabric F64 node and above.
- Copilot for D365 – included in enterprise and premium level end user licenses.
- Copilot for Power Platform – can be access in the power platform admin center regardless of license.
Still in Public Preview mode:
- Copilot in Azure
- Copilot for Windows 10/11
- Copilot for Intune
Microsoft has also released Copilot Pro, a license for home and personal use that requires a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription. This includes copilots for the M365 apps, but they do not connect to the M365 Graph API, and instead only access publicly available data from the internet.
If you have any licensing questions about Copilot, or other Microsoft licensing, we are here to help. Please contact us and we would be happy to assist.