Microsoft Copilot review
AI inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams — the enterprise play rather than the best chatbot.
What we like
- Reads your organisation's own files, emails and meetings through Microsoft Graph
- Enterprise-grade compliance, data residency and admin controls
- Meeting recap in Teams is the single best-received feature in most rollouts
- Included in Windows and free tier for consumer use
What we do not
- Quality inside Office apps is uneven — Word and Teams are strong, Excel and PowerPoint less so
- Business licence costs around $30 per user per month on top of Microsoft 365
- Consumer Copilot is less capable than ChatGPT despite similar underlying models
What it is
Microsoft Copilot is less a chatbot than a layer spread across everything Microsoft sells. There is a free consumer assistant in Windows and on the web, a $20 Pro tier for individuals, and the serious product: Microsoft 365 Copilot, which grounds answers in your own organisation's emails, files, chats and meetings.
Where it shines
Teams meeting recap is the feature that sells the product. It produces a summary, decisions and action items with speaker attribution, and it works well enough that people stop taking notes. Outlook drafting and thread summarisation are close behind. In Word, the ability to generate a first draft grounded in three internal documents you reference is genuinely useful for proposal and report work.
The deeper advantage is compliance. Data stays inside the Microsoft 365 tenant boundary, respects existing permissions, and appears in the same admin and audit tooling your IT team already runs. For regulated industries that is often the deciding factor, regardless of which model scores higher on a benchmark.
Where it falls short
Quality is uneven across the suite. Excel Copilot still struggles with anything beyond well-formed tables, and PowerPoint generation produces decks that need heavy editing. The consumer version feels a step behind ChatGPT despite drawing on similar models, because of tighter guardrails and a busier interface.
The permissions issue deserves emphasis: Copilot surfaces anything a user technically has access to, which in most organisations is more than anyone realised. Several rollouts have stalled at exactly this discovery, so audit sharing settings before you buy seats.
Pricing in plain English
Free for consumer chat. $20 per month for Copilot Pro. Around $30 per user per month for Microsoft 365 Copilot, on top of your existing Microsoft 365 licence — that is the number that matters for businesses.
Who should use it
Organisations already standardised on Microsoft 365, especially those with heavy Teams usage and compliance requirements. Individuals are better served by ChatGPT or Claude at the same price.
Microsoft Copilot pricing
Checked Aug 2, 2026. Vendors change pricing often — verify on their site before purchasing.
Free
$0 / month
- Web and Windows chat
- Image generation with limits
- Basic document assistance
Copilot Pro
$20 / month
- Priority model access
- Copilot in consumer Office apps
- Higher image generation limits
Microsoft 365 Copilot
Most chosen$30 / user/month
- Copilot across Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams and PowerPoint
- Grounding in your organisation data
- Enterprise compliance and admin controls
- Best for
- Summarising Teams meetingsDrafting in Word and OutlookExcel analysis and formulasEnterprise search over SharePointWindows desktop assistance
- Platforms
- WebWindowsiOSAndroidMicrosoft 365
Microsoft Copilot FAQs
Is Microsoft Copilot free?
The consumer chat experience on the web and in Windows is free. Copilot Pro at $20 per month adds priority access and Office integration for individuals, and Microsoft 365 Copilot at around $30 per user per month is the business licence.
Is Microsoft 365 Copilot worth $30 per user?
It depends almost entirely on Teams meeting volume and how well your SharePoint data is organised. Companies with heavy meeting culture report the clearest return; companies with messy file permissions often find it surfaces documents people should not see.
Does Copilot use the same model as ChatGPT?
It uses OpenAI models alongside Microsoft's own. The experience differs because of the surrounding product, guardrails and the enterprise data grounding layer.
Can Copilot see my company files?
Yes — that is the point of the business licence. It respects existing Microsoft 365 permissions, which is exactly why auditing your permissions before rollout is essential.
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