- Microsoft on Tuesday announced a new artificial intelligence subscription service for Microsoft 365: The company will pay users an additional $30 per month for the use of generative AI with tools such as Teams, Excel and Word.
- Adding a generative AI subscription should reportedly cost business users an additional 50% or more per month.
- The updates come as the race to offer consumer-driven generative AI tools heats up among tech giants like Microsoft, Google, IBM and more.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, speaks during an interview in Redmond, Washington, March 15, 2023.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Microsoft shares rose as much as 5.8% on Tuesday after the company announced a new artificial intelligence subscription service for Microsoft 365: The company will pay users an extra $30 per month for using generative AI with tools like Teams, Excel and Word.
Adding a subscription to Copilot, a generative AI assistant that works with Microsoft 365 programs, can increase the monthly price for business customers by up to 83%. Copilot’s capabilities include ranking incoming emails, summarizing meetings, analyzing spreadsheet data, offering writing prompts and designing presentations, according to Microsoft.
The updates come as the race to offer consumer-driven generative AI tools heats up among tech giants like Microsoft, Google, IBM and more.
“It’s based on your business data in the Microsoft Graph – that’s all your emails, calendars, chats, documents and more,” Microsoft wrote in a release, adding that the tool follows preset security , privacy and user compliance policies for Microsoft 365.
The tool is currently in the early stages of testing with 600 business customers, such as Goodyear and General Motors. Microsoft has not announced a timeline for its public launch.
The company also announced a major update to Bing Chat, its AI chatbot, on Tuesday: visual search. Users can now take or upload a photo to Bing Chat and request more information about it through the desktop or Bing apps.