Microsoft 365 Copilot is generally available

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. 

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.

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-enterprise-and-microsoft-365-copilot-pricing/. 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". 

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.

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. 

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.

"Microsoft 365 Copilot is generally available"

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

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-the-weight-of-work-for-small-and/ba-p/3933279

Posting to show hope is on the horizon. 

Very, very disappointed!

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 !