Microsoft splits Copilot into seat licenses and metered billing for agent work

Microsoft's new Copilot adds Home, Code and Autopilot, with Cowork, Code and Autopilot billed by usage rather than per seat.

Microsoft announced the new Copilot on September 25. It comes with three new capabilities, Home, Code and Autopilot, and a two-part pricing model. Microsoft says a user subscription license (USL) covers everyday Chat and Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams. Cowork, Code, Autopilot and frontier models run on usage-based billing (UBB). If you build on Microsoft 365, the cost of agent work will track how much the agents do, not how many seats you buy.

What's in it, per Microsoft:

Empowering.Cloud cites Message Center post MC1479277. It says Code requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence plus a spending policy. It also notes that Chat, which stays included, is gaining long-running multi-step tasks, so the line between included and metered work is blurrier than the blog suggests.

WindowsForum points out that Microsoft's own post gives inconsistent timing for Code. The new FinOps controls include spending policies with API access, approval flows for credit requests, per-group model access and credit balances that users can see.

Vesa Nopanen adds a practical caution: an app generated in Code still needs an owner, tested behavior and a maintenance plan.

Still unclear: the actual per-unit prices for Code and Autopilot, and which license tiers qualify for Frontier and the private preview.

Sources