Image: Microsoft
Microsoft is making a free version of the Copilot Chat capability available to every Microsoft 365 user, although more premium capabilities will still be locked behind a subscription.
The Chat window will now appear inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote, allowing users to query a document, create images, and more. Microsoft says you’ll now be able to do even more, with multiple image uploads permitted within the app. The input box has been widened as well, presumably to present Copilot as a collaborative tool that shares priority with the document itself.
Microsoft is also making GPT-5 part of the Copilot experience, as it has said before.
Licensed Copilot users now get access to Researcher and Analyst agents directly within Copilot, helping them explore ideas, analyze data, and accelerate their work, Microsoft said in a blog post. At $20 per user per month, Copilot Pro includes “extensive usage” limits, access to various models, and advanced research tools. The plan adds project-specific notebooks, an AI design studio for branded images, and more. Microsoft is also promoting “agents”–AI bots that will pursue tasks on your behalf–as a premium feature.
Microsoft
Of course, if you don’t want to add Copilot to your system, there are free alternatives instead.
The free Copilot chat apparently introduces a new syntax, too. Instead of clicking and hunting down files to upload, Microsoft says that you’ll be able to simply type a “/” key and then search for what you need.
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld
Mark has written for PCWorld for the last decade, with 30 years of experience covering technology. He has authored over 3,500 articles for PCWorld alone, covering PC microprocessors, peripherals, and Microsoft Windows, among other topics. Mark has written for publications including PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Popular Science and Electronic Buyers' News, where he shared a Jesse H. Neal Award for breaking news. He recently handed over a collection of several dozen Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs because his office simply has no more room.
