Microsoft 365 Copilot is generally available

[TJ_Devine]

Starting today, Microsoft 365 Copilot is generally available for enterprise customers worldwide. .  

Microsoft 365 Copilot combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with your data in the Microsoft Graph, the Microsoft 365 apps, and the web to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet. And it does so within our existing commitments to data security and privacy in the enterprise.  

Starting today, Copilot is covered by the Microsoft 365 product terms applicable to our core online services, data protection addendum, and our commitments under the EU Data Boundary. 

Copilot is currently supported in the following languages: English (US, GB, AU, CA, IN)​​, Spanish (ES, MX)​​, Japanese​​, French (FR, CA)​​, German​​, Portuguese (BR)​​, Italian​​, and Chinese Simplified​​. We plan to support the following languages (in alphabetical order) over the first half of 2024: Arabic​, Chinese Traditional​, Czech​, Danish​, Dutch​, Finnish​, Hebrew​, Hungarian, ​Korean​, Norwegian​, Polish​, Portuguese (PT)​, Russian​, Swedish​, Thai​, Turkish​, Ukrainian​. Microsoft 365 Copilot GCC is expected to begin rollout during the Summer of 2024. We plan to share more on GCC High and DOD through the Microsoft 365 roadmap in early 2024.  

Get started 

Enterprise customers can call their Microsoft account representative to purchase Microsoft 365 Copilot. Customers who already have Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 (or Business Standard / Premium) can start using Bing Chat Enterprise today. And every organization can start taking steps to learn how Copilot works, understand licensing and technical requirements, get familiar with new capabilities, and get their organization ready.  

Finally, join the community. Ask questions, start a conversation, hear the latest from our engineers, or share your feedback in the Microsoft 365 Copilot Tech Community.  

[jpurviance]

Hey TJ,

I represent a smaller enterprise technology company.  We use Microsoft 365 E5 licenses for all users.  We would benefit greatly from Microsoft 365 Co-pilot.  However, it looks like it isn't available to small companies with less than 300 users.  It's a little disappointing that the marketing and all discussions have indicated that Copilot will be GA today, that is however not the case.  We are hearing we must have 300+ licenses minimum.  A lot of people are going to be disappointed to find that that GA only applies to larger enterprise clients and the rest of us are being left in the dirt.  A smaller, enterprise company with less than 300 users could arguably benefit from the Copilot capabilities as much or more than a larger company to automate, simplify many tasks that a smaller company can't always for. 

If I may make a suggestion for your marketing and technical teams to be more transparent in what GA means.  Your customers think it's available, when in reality it's not available generally.  

I hope somebody reads this and can empathize with SMBs in this context. 

[Teberts]

I agree. This was not forthright and actually pretty bad marketing to say things will be GA when a lot of businesses, the majority even, will not qualify. Bad look.

[Jakub Misiura]

How can you possibly call it a GA launch when suddenly it's now only Enterprise plans with minimum seating required? This directly contradicts July's announcement that it will be available for Business plans as well - https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/07/18/furthering-our-ai-ambitions-announcing-bing-chat-enterpr.... Massively disappointing. It would be absolutely understandable if it's due to capacity limits that needs to be expanded over time, but it should've been marked clearly ahead of this "launch". 

[CDAVIS640]

This is more than just a terrible look. With all the talk of Microsoft wanting to make AI equitable for everyone, and help all people - the very first thing they do is make it available only to multi million / billion dollar enterprises. What about small business? What about non-profit organizations? What about Microsoft partners who try to re-sell this to the SMB market?

By giving it to large organizations first - Microsoft is only deepening the inequity of access to AI.

[Teberts]

I guess its our fault for expecting Microsoft to do anything other than be a miser.

[Brlnr]

At last month's Power Platform conference, Copilot was hyped with no mention of this limitation. I came back with incredible enthusiasm, hoping I could start using this with my small business account before it is made available by our admins for the large enterprise I work for. 

Talk about burying the lede. 

[NMC2023]

Very, very disappointed!

[David_Swenson]

@TJ_Devine , you should probably remove the buttons on public facing pages that encourage people to try Copilot in Teams, Outlook, Word etc on this page Microsoft Copilot seeing as how it is not really available for anyone. Please expedite the release of the per user SKU with no minimum. This has been the biggest disappointment that Microsoft has delivered in a long time.

[Aisha_N]

I agree, the GA Announcement is confusing and definitely disappointing for anyone less than 300 seats.  I will post a link to the September post where Microsoft spoke of the pilot they are doing with SMB: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/small-and-medium-business-blog/microsoft-365-copilot-eases-th...

Posting to show hope is on the horizon. 

[SquirrelsNest]

I honestly woke up excited to use the MS365 Copilot feature and then learned I needed to spend another $57/month on yet another MS product to get an E5 license to use the service. Microsoft dangled this in front of the community for months. This feels disingenuous. 

[Teberts]

Absolutely, Squirrel. It’s like they’ve invited us to a fancy party, but didn’t tell us about the entry fee or the rule that you need to bring a big group to get in. It’s a bit of a bummer, especially since they didn’t let us know about these rules until now. It’s like waiting in line for a roller coaster, only to find out at the front that you’re not tall enough to ride. Not the best feeling, is it?

[james333]

"Microsoft 365 Copilot is generally available"

A highly misleading headline here. It is not generally available at all.

[Laurent_Verscheure]

I was highly enthusiastic to benefit from Microsoft Copilot as I run my own small business. I was hopeful that it could assist me in my endeavors... However, my excitement quickly faded when I discovered the fine print that restricts its availability to only large corporations.

Indeed, the advertising and communication surrounding Copilot were highly misleading. I am particularly disappointed by the lack of transparency in Microsoft's promotional materials. I had genuinely believed that Copilot could be a valuable tool for my business, only to find out that it was out of reach for entrepreneurs like me. Make Copilot accessible to all, not just to the giants of the industry !

[umbrellafinance]

As a small business we have been very excited for the General Release of CoPilot. Preparing our data as advised, getting the team excited, shoot we even migrated from Google in Q2 with anticipation of Microsoft leading the way. Now to see that GA has a minimum seat capacity is very crushing, we don't even have close to the seats required, let alone the available spend. Very disappointed in the way Microsoft has misled the community.

I guess the gap between big and small enterprise will just continue to widen as the larger companies get the leg up here too.

[David_Henderson]

Agreed. Ridiculous. Have been waiting to try and roll it out. 
Confusing and frustrating. 

[adncisse]

This is just insane. Was excited like everyone and finally my organization can't use it because "we are too small"...

[A1]

Microsoft 365 Copilot documentation | Microsoft Learn

I've added this official documentation - but it would be great if Microsoft explained the licensing issue in simple terms and ( what does general availability mean? ) - >>>

You just have to pay at least $108k a year for a Copilot license in your organization and then it's (generally available)! Update: This is good news!

Our vision to bring Microsoft Copilot to everyone, and more | Bing Search Blog

Unleash Your Potential with Microsoft 365 Copilot: An AMA to Ignite your Productivity - Microsoft Co... - There will be important information here, I recommend it!

Get started with Microsoft 365 Copilot | Microsoft Learn

[laurenlinfo]

Disappointing and infuriating false advertising.

[SylDro]

Microsoft is completely mismarketing the Copilot and misleading people. SMBs should mainly be the one targeted, as they need to be more productive due to the lack of resources they have. We were excited to try it until we figured out it was not available for SMBs. This is a total disappointment!

[MarceloPacifico]

total disappointment.

It seems like they don't even care what we write here.

It looks like they just took a ready-made message script and posted it in the community for the sake of posting...

Like many others here, I was hoping to get the copilot for testing today, where Microsoft's own support team informed me that I could do it.

[Marcelo_Mello]

Boa tarde! Tenho o 365 instalado. Qual o procedimento para assinar o Copliot? Não encontrei. 

Aguardo. 

[Brett Gilleo]

I worked to set my very small organization up to utilize Copilot, based upon the marketing information presented from Microsoft. But it appears Microsoft has failed the small business world. I wish I had better options, but I guess I am stuck with Microsoft for now. 

[Gandoge]

You guys are clowns for the 300 user minimum.

Who ever the circus leader is for this should be publicly shamed.

[ZachTomlin]

I was incredibly excited to purchase a Microsoft 365 Copilot license today. I have been waiting for months and telling my clients how significant this product could be for small businesses.

I am a thought leader in the AI space within our community and I have been paying extremely close attention to Copilot. Nowhere, did Microsoft indicate that they were even considering a minimum seat count.

I've read articles and talk to colleagues that have been using the product for months now. Even these large companies have stated that at the $30.00 price point, they wouldn't be rolling it out to all of their employees. This, right behind the change in hard commitments on annual licensing which defeats one of the key advantages of cloud computing... scalability.

I am very disappointed in Microsoft. To say the least.

I was all in on Microsoft 365, but Google is starting to look better and better.

Not even my largest clients are going to entertain 300 seats at $30.00 a month with a hard annual commitment.

Horrible business move. It baffles me how executives that make more money than I can even fathom have less business sense than people such as myself that dropped out of a community college.

With that being said, pay me enough and I MAY consider joining your board of directors. Over the past 5 to 10 years. I guarantee you that I'd do a much better job.

It reminds me of the time Microsoft thought that removing the Start button in Windows 8 was a good idea when literally every partner told them ahead of time that it would be a problem.

How much money do you need to lose before you start listening to the people that our out their selling and deploying your product?

[Carsten_Recker]

"generally available" 

[Jazmin15]

I upgraded my licenses to E3 a month ago. I mentioned to the rep why I was upgrading, and she did not mention that copilot will only be available for enterprise customers. Then I spent hours with another support tech getting everything ready, and he also failed to mention it would not be available to my company (most likely because Microsoft's own support thing did not know). This is absolutely ridiculous Microsoft!!!!!!! 

[Roadlake]

Disappointed. The headline of this blog is also completely false; it is not generally available. 

[ZachTomlin]

@Jazmin15 I am so sorry to hear this. Microsoft should compensate you for your time and throw in a ton of extra money for potentially harming your reputation. 

[ZachTomlin]

@Roadlake facts

[Jawboner]

It really is extraordinary and has been incredibly misleading to suggest that Co-Pilot was generally available today.  We have been early adopters of the Office 365 subscription platform and have held E3 licensing for years.  While we are a large medical practice with five locations, we would never come close to requiring three hundred seats.  The features within this product will assist in email correspondence, teaching obligations, business management, and Teams correspondence and much more.  We were early adopters of the Teams program.  To restrict this to companies initially with just three hundred seats offers a competitive advantage to larger businesses that really does not reflect well on Microsoft's understanding of the small business community.  Many small businesses including our own are competing with larger companies being given access.  In our instance that would apply to private equity owned medical practices and universities with whom we compete for business, etc.  This is a huge oversight.  

[SquirrelsNest]

I think at its kernel (heh) it comes down to professionals on the smaller business end, the contractors, the subject matter experts, the people who see an ability to make themselves more marketable and, honestly, take some of the load off because we are the ones moving things along in our organizations. People like me, and my wife, who works in healthcare and owns her own business. We don’t have people like us at our levels to shuffle off critical tasks and we need tools to make the minutia a little easier to handle on top of the million other things leadership does to the top performers. I like to think that people like me, with skillsets that are not bound solely by the organization’s technology, actively look for useful tools that will free us up to address real problems. I felt like Microsoft was on the edge of changing the world with this tool. But $…

[DeanCallaghan]

With a natural obsession with the rapidly evolving development of AI in 2023, I searched "Microsoft Copilot" every morning since March to see if there were any new announcements. Seeing the launch today, I was highly disappointed to see the requirements for this product, which was never outlined in the ridiculous effort of marketing material and documentation. For a flagship product, your marketing team did not handle this effectively. Someone needs to be held accountable for the masses who will switch to Google Workspace for their competitive product. It's a horrid look for you, Microsoft, that isn't just affecting a small portion of your customer base, but your entire ethos on supporting diverse businesses.

Sort this out, please. Enterprises shouldn't always win. 

[StephaneOmni]

Enterprise customers can call their Microsoft account representative to purchase Microsoft 365 Copilot. Customers who already have Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 (or Business Standard / Premium) 

Business Premium is limited to 300 seats so a company that has only Business Premium cannot get copilot at the moment. Definitely a lot of misleading statements. 

[xin_qing]

This is really a very bad push.

[xin_qing]

Have you never even considered small businesses with fewer than 300 people?

[supermario_ai]

 Push this out to all your socials.

[supermario_ai]

https://x.com/supermario_ai/status/1719961234991108201?s=20

[AlexB]

generally available? where? I can't get it, we have 200x Microsoft 365 E5 users.

[Mwillems40]

As the leader of a small business, I am extremely disappointed by Microsoft's communication regarding Copilot. It's very frustrating; promises have been pouring in since March 2023, but as a famous French politician once said: "Promises only commit those who believe in them..." I am among those who believed. I am waiting for the makeup session with 3 months free for small business !

[Alex Woodrow]

Echo all the comments above.  It's totally disingenuous to describe it as General Availability when it's only available to 300 seat plus users.  It only takes a minute on google to determine that in the UK companies with over 300 employees are way less than 1% of total companies.  its the Micro, Small and medium Enterprises that will benefit from Copilot and need all the help they can get remaining competitive.  Large companies that will likely get significant discounts on Microsoft365 anyway are likely to be slower to adopt it for various reasons.  

[RSymmons]

Microsoft 365 Copilot is generally unavailable

oops

[Kris_Walraevens]

On the last week in Belgium Microsoft office

• Microsoft 365 Copilot wil be available start november 2023
• Only for US customers with an enterprise agreement +300 users
• All ms365 users have to activate this license
• No launch date in EMEA yet

TIP : The Sales Copilot for Microsoft Outlook is already available for Ms partners

[DZelenski86]

Brought to you by Bing Chat for Enterprise: 

Next time, it should be called what it is. A targeted release. The details of that targeted release should have been communicated more definitively. I work for an MSP, and we are a Microsoft Partner. As instructed by Microsoft, we worked to try and get ahead of this release to generate buzz and opportunities for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Now, we sadly have to let the customers know the correction in the announcement on the release schedule. Not a good look. 

[MattyIce1985]

Man... I came here ready to spend money - left disappointed... I'm sure there are two sides of the story - you get a semi pass because I still will get it, but that did ding Microsofts reputation a bit 

[jamesgtoronto]

Wildly disappointed by the 300 seat minimum. This detail seems to be conveniently left out of prior communications. I feel like MS has little respect for clients under 300 users. This is enough to make me plan to migrate away from M365. Hopefully a change can be made soon.

[Mwillems40]

I'm a bit hesitant to take the 300 licenses because I only have 2 employees. I'm going to think about it a bit more before taking the leap...

[A1]

@Mwillems40      Update Removed the 300 license requirement for Copilot 365:  Expanding availability of Copilot for Microsoft 365 - Microsoft Community Hub                                                         I have an idea - maybe you need to merge small companies and hire more than 300 employees ( this is a great unofficial proposal )

If you like such an initiative, please leave your feedback - I look forward to hearing from :)

Of course, it was just a stupid joke!

I've been with MTC for quite a long time and I know that Microsoft employees have been following this discussion and we'll be sure to find out in a new blog when Copilot will be really generally available. 

"Bing Chat Enterprise builds on Microsoft Copilot and adds commercial data protection—so you can be confident your business data is protected and will not leak outside the organization. With Bing Chat Enterprise, chat data is not saved, Microsoft has no eyes-on access, and your data is not used to train the large language models (LLM). Bing Chat Enterprise is available as a standalone for $5 per user per month and is included in Microsoft 365 E3 and Microsoft 365 E5."

Announcing Microsoft 365 Copilot general availability and Microsoft 365 Chat | Microsoft 365 Blog

[AJ_Scotland]

Over the past few weeks, my team and I have dedicated countless hours migrating data from various sources and integrating our infrastructure into Microsoft’s ecosystem in preparation for the November 1st launch. We were excited about the potential benefits and efficiencies that CoPilot Enterprise promised to bring to our operations.

However, we were taken aback when we discovered an unmentioned requirement of a minimum of 300 seats for CoPilot Enterprise. 

The lack of transparency regarding this requirement has resulted in wasted time, resources, and has unfortunately shaken our confidence in your product and services. We had high hopes for this launch and the impact it could have on our operations, but this oversight has caused unnecessary setbacks.

We kindly request that you address this issue promptly. Clear and upfront communication about such requirements is crucial for us to make informed decisions about which products best suit our needs.

[Jazmin15]

@AJ_Scotland :hundred_points:!!!! 

Microsoft needs to do something about all the wasted time and resources of the small business who prepared for the launch.

Their own support team was not aware of the 300 seat requirement. 

[Rob O'Keefe]

This is such a HUGE FAIL!! What is even the rationale??? This makes no sense.