Copilot Comes A’knockin’

If you have an M365 personal of Family subscription, you recently received some “Good News’ from Microsoft about the addition of Copilot to your subscription:

Words from Microsoft:

Your Microsoft 365 subscription just got better

Your Microsoft 365 plan now includes Microsoft Copilot¹ in Word, Excel,² PowerPoint, Outlook,³ and OneNote, the new image creation and editing app Designer,¹ and credits to use AI features.

Copilot and Designer are built with the principles of fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability at their core.

The trouble is, there are a number of “Catches” involved with this “Good News”.  Let’s have a look at them.

Price

TANSTAFFL (There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch).  Both the Personal and Family subscriptions increase in price by $30 per year.  Note that we were not asked if we’d like to add this update for the additional cost of $30/year, we received the Outlook New treatment (forced update).  Microsoft has given us the ability to “Downgrade” subscriptions to the “Classic” versions (old prices, no Copilot).  Trouble is, you have to CANCEL your existing subscription, then re-subscribe to the classic versions.  Here’s Microsoft’s article:

Switching to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family Classic Plans - Microsoft Support

Availability

If you have the Personal plan, no issue, you get everything.  Not so with the Family plan.  Words from the Microsoft Letter:

The use of Copilot and other AI-powered features is limited to the subscription owner and cannot be shared. This means that others on your plan won’t be able to use Copilot in their apps.

The rest of the subscription remains the same, “You can still share the rest of your subscription benefits with up to 5 others, including up to 1 TB of cloud storage per person (up to 6 TB total), desktop apps, and advanced digital security to safeguard your personal data and devices.”

Copilot is EVERYWHERE!

“Hey, I like Copilot, but for this document (spreadsheet, presentation, etc.) I don’t need it, it is in my way and slowing me down, how do I turn it off?”  Good question and I’m seeing it appear all over the Answers forums.  Fortunately, Microsoft has come up with a solution:

How to turn off Copilot in Microsoft 365 Family and Personal subscriptions - Microsoft Support

I, personally, do not see the Copilot checkbox mentioned in the support article in any of my M365 apps, but that is due to having an E5 business account in addition to the Family M365 account; I’ve seen no words anywhere indicating Copilot can be “turned off” in Business subscriptions.

AI credits

Microsoft’s words on the subject:

“Your Microsoft 365 subscription now includes AI credits to explore and use Copilot and Designer.¹ With our AI-powered tools, you are in the driver's seat, deciding when and how to use AI features as you tackle your day. Each time you interact with Copilot or Designer, one credit will be used, and your credits refresh at the beginning of every month.”

So, this Copilot isn’t quite the same as the “Business” Copilot.  In the business world, Copilot is a LOT more expensive, $20 per user per month, but it comes with unlimited usage.  You get 60 AI Credits a month to use in any app you have that has Copilot capabilities.  Unused credits do NOT roll over.  If you run out, I’m not sure what will happen.  Microsoft says:

 “If you use all your monthly AI credits, you can purchase additional AI credits by upgrading to a Microsoft 365 Personal or Microsoft 365 Family subscription, or by subscribing to Copilot Pro.

This makes no sense to me.  If I have a Personal or Family subscription, exactly HOW can I “Upgrade” my subscription to the same subscription to get more credits…or are they saying I have to purchase an ADDITIONAL subscription?  Copilot Pro is the $30 per user per month plan for business and I do not consider this a reasonable solution for home/family users.  I’ll have to ping contacts at Microsoft to see if I can get a handle on how to get more credits if you run out: I fear it will be “Wait until the next month when you get 60 more credits.”  Microsoft’s take on this is here:

Understanding AI credits - Microsoft Support

Conclusion

I have a Family subscription, I’ve received the Copilot “upgrade”, and I can afford the extra $30/year for the time being.  I’ll see how it goes and report on it in a subsequent article.