Microsoft unveiled a rebuilt Copilot app on Sept. 25 with three sections called Home, Code, and Autopilot. Code lets non-developers build apps, dashboards, and automations from plain-language prompts, using the same underlying technology as GitHub Copilot.
Autopilot, a rename of the Scout agent from June, runs in the cloud, watches email and Teams channels, and handles recurring work without a new prompt.
Home merges chat with a delegation feature called Cowork and embeds full versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint so users never leave the app.
Microsoft says the agent lives in your tenant with its own identity, memory, and workspace, governed by permissions and audit trails.
Adoption has stalled below 7% of Office seats
Of more than 450M existing commercial Office 365 seats worldwide, fewer than 7% carry licenses for the AI add-on.
Microsoft reported more than 30M paid Copilot seats in July. The company had sold 365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot as separate products while rivals like Anthropic and OpenAI bundled everything into one interface.
An executive acknowledged that adding coding to the app is an instance of Microsoft playing catch-up.
"We're holding a very high bar."
Jacob Andreou, Microsoft
Pricing moves from per seat to per use
The $30 per user per month commercial Microsoft 365 Copilot license still covers chat and the AI features inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams.
Cowork, Code, Autopilot, and the newest frontier models will instead be billed by consumption. Nadella told investors in July the company is moving beyond per-seat to per-seat-plus-consumption.
Microsoft also added cost controls so employees can see credit balances and usage history tied to their own AI activity.
Security, compliance, and governance concerns have made it hard for many organizations to bring agents into the enterprise, according to Annie Pearl, corporate vice president of Copilot Product.
One early customer, consulting firm GHD, has given Copilot to 12,000 employees, with around 200 testing Cowork. Copilot still leans on OpenAI and Anthropic models, and no Microsoft model appears as an option in the Home tab.
Companies in the Frontier early-access program get Home and Code over the coming weeks, with Autopilot in private preview at month's end. Microsoft plans to detail the rest at Ignite, running Nov. 17-20 in San Francisco.
