Microsoft is renaming its primary chatbot for businesses as part of an intensified effort to encourage users to adopt the software maker’s closest competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The chatbot, originally introduced as Bing Chat Enterprise in 2023, will now be known as Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, the company announced on Wednesday. This marks the second rebranding of the AI assistant since its debut.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is available at no additional cost to all purchasers of Microsoft’s main workplace software bundle. The chatbot is capable of synthesizing data from the web, analyzing documents, and suggesting replies to customer service inquiries, among other functions. However, according to Jared Spataro, who oversees Microsoft’s workplace AI tools, the assistant has not received as much attention as other Copilots embedded in individual productivity applications like Word and Excel.
Most people don’t know that they have it, and it’s not something that we’ve done a lot of marketing around. We definitely wanted to raise the visibility.
Jared Spataro
The assistant can be accessed via a web browser or smartphone app, but it does have some limitations. For instance, it cannot transcribe a Microsoft Teams conference call or prioritize unread messages in an email inbox. These tasks, along with others that integrate with Microsoft’s widespread workplace applications, require a subscription to Microsoft 365 Copilot, which costs users $30 per month.
Despite these limitations, Spataro mentioned that Microsoft is enhancing the capabilities of the chat-window-based Copilot. New features will include allowing users to access agents—autonomous bots programmed to perform specific tasks such as retrieving customer account details or technical specifications.
Regarding pricing, Microsoft will charge users a nominal fee for accessing these agents. For example, a request for a custom answer from the agent’s underlying large language model will cost $0.02, while accessing data from Microsoft applications will cost $0.30.
This pricing strategy appears to undercut competitors like Salesforce, which is promoting its own set of agents that will initially cost about $2 per conversation. Other software companies such as ServiceNow, Workday, HubSpot, and SAP are also emphasizing AI bots capable of fetching information and performing actions on behalf of users. Microsoft’s offering is described by Spataro as “an on-ramp and an easy way to get started with no to low commitment.”
