Microsoft Copilot
One AI assistant to chat, search, and create across work and life
About Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft's AI assistant for chat, web-grounded answers, research, and content creation, and it replaces the earlier Bing Chat and Bing AI experiences. It runs on the web, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and inside Microsoft Edge, and it is free with a signed-in Microsoft account within usage limits. Microsoft 365 Personal, Premium, and Pro subscriptions raise those limits and add Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote, plus agentic features such as Researcher and Cowork.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Genuinely usable free tier with just a Microsoft account, covering chat, web-grounded answers, and image creation
- Available everywhere Microsoft users already are: Windows, Edge, Mac, iOS, Android, and the web
- Paid plans bundle Copilot with the Office desktop apps and 1 TB or more of OneDrive storage, which competing chatbots don't include
- Built directly into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, so you can draft, analyze, and summarize without leaving your documents
- Agentic Researcher and Cowork modes plus vision and voice put it close to feature parity with ChatGPT and Gemini
Cons
- Usage is metered by vague tiers ("higher than free", "extensive", "highest") rather than published message counts
- Copilot AI features on Personal, Family, and Premium apply only to the subscription owner and can't be shared with family members
- Frequent renames (Bing Chat, Copilot, Projects to Notebooks, Tasks to Cowork) make documentation and tutorials go stale quickly
- Model choice is mostly made by Microsoft, with less direct control over the underlying model than ChatGPT or Claude
- Pro tier at $99.99/month is billed monthly only
Key Features
Copilot Chat
Conversational AI assistant for questions, brainstorming, summaries, and drafting, running on Microsoft-selected models including the latest OpenAI GPT-5.x models
Grounded Search
Answers grounded in web results and your referenced or uploaded files, carrying forward the search-plus-chat experience that started as Bing Chat
Create (AI Images)
Generate images and draft polished content from a text description, with higher image-creation allowances on paid plans
Researcher
Agentic deep-research mode (formerly Deep Research) that runs multi-step research and analysis, available with limited usage on Premium and the highest usage on Pro
Cowork
Agentic task mode (formerly Tasks) that carries out multi-step work on your behalf inside the Copilot experience
Copilot Vision and Voice
Visual assistance from your screen or phone camera and voice conversations on mobile, desktop, and web
Notebooks
Project workspaces (formerly Projects) that keep chats, files, and context together for ongoing work
Guided Learning
Study mode (formerly Study and Learn) that walks you through a topic step by step instead of handing over the answer
Copilot in Microsoft 365 Apps
With a Microsoft 365 subscription, Copilot drafts, edits, analyzes, and summarizes directly inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote
Memory and Personalization
Remembers preferences and context across conversations, with work and personal chat histories kept separate by account
Pricing
- Copilot chat, search, and image creation with a signed-in Microsoft account
- Usage limits subject to available capacity
- Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android apps
- Word, Excel, and PowerPoint free on the web
- 1 person, sign in on 5 devices at once
- 1 TB cloud storage
- Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote desktop apps
- Advanced Copilot chat with higher usage than free
- Higher usage for image creation, visual assistance, and AI audio
- 1-month free trial
- Everything in Personal
- Up to 6 people, 2 TB shared cloud storage
- Advanced Copilot chat with extensive usage
- Limited usage for agentic AI (advanced research and analytics)
- Extensive image creation, visual assistance, and AI audio
- Access to Copilot features exclusive to Premium and Pro
- 1-month free trial
- Everything in Premium
- 5 TB shared cloud storage
- Advanced Copilot chat with the highest usage
- Highest usage for agentic AI, visual assistance, and AI audio
- Monthly billing only
Best For
Everyday AI assistant
Ask questions, brainstorm, and get web-grounded answers for free from the browser, Windows taskbar, or phone
Writing and editing in Office
Microsoft 365 subscribers draft documents in Word, summarize email threads in Outlook, and build slide decks in PowerPoint with Copilot in the app
Spreadsheet analysis
Use Copilot in Excel to explain formulas, analyze data, and surface trends without writing formulas by hand
Research projects
Run Researcher for multi-step research and keep sources, files, and chats together in a Notebook
Studying and learning
Students use Guided Learning to work through topics step by step, with discounted Microsoft 365 plans for eligible students
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