Is Microsoft Copilot Free?

Microsoft 365 Copilot is Microsoft’s AI-powered assistant for work, integrated across Microsoft 365 applications including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams. It combines large language models with your organisation’s Microsoft 365 data and Microsoft Graph to provide contextual, work-specific assistance.

This means it can help generate content, analyse information, summarise conversations and surface insights from the documents, emails, chats and meetings your employees already work with every day.

How can Microsoft Copilot help your business?

Microsoft Copilot Chat helps employees draft content, catch up on missed discussions, summarise information and get answers to open-ended questions without leaving their workflow.

Copilot Search provides an AI-powered universal search experience across Microsoft 365 content and supported connected data sources, helping users find information more quickly across their organisation.

Copilot also works with Microsoft Graph, the data and intelligence layer behind Microsoft’s cloud services. Microsoft Graph understands the relationships between users, content and activity across Microsoft 365, bringing personalised context into every interaction. This enables Copilot to provide relevant responses based on the emails, documents, chats and meetings each user already has permission to access.

Together, these capabilities help teams work more efficiently, connect information across systems and automate time-consuming tasks without compromising existing security or permissions. If you’re weighing up Microsoft’s AI offerings, our guide to Copilot vs Microsoft 365 Copilot vs Copilot Chat explains the differences in more detail.

Is Microsoft Copilot free?

Yes. Microsoft offers a free version of Copilot.

For general AI chat, web-grounded answers and content generation, Microsoft Copilot is available through the web, mobile apps and across Microsoft products such as Edge and Windows.

Depending on the experience you use, Microsoft Copilot can help summarise content, draft text, brainstorm ideas, answer questions and generate AI images.

However, there is an important distinction between the free experience and Microsoft 365 Copilot.

The free version is designed primarily for web-grounded AI assistance. Microsoft 365 Copilot, on the other hand, is securely connected to your organisation’s Microsoft 365 data, including emails, meetings, documents and Teams conversations, allowing it to provide far more relevant and contextual support for day-to-day work.

For businesses that want Copilot grounded in organisational data and deeply integrated across Microsoft 365 applications, a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licence is generally required.

How much does Copilot for business cost?

Microsoft 365 Copilot is licensed per user and requires an eligible Microsoft 365 business or enterprise subscription.

With the appropriate licence in place, Copilot can securely access information from emails, chats, documents, meetings and other Microsoft 365 data sources through Microsoft Graph. This allows users to draft content, summarise discussions, analyse data and automate routine tasks while maintaining existing security permissions and compliance controls.

Importantly, Copilot respects existing Microsoft 365 permissions, so users can only access organisational information they are already authorised to view. However, businesses should still review permissions, data governance and security controls before deployment.

For businesses looking to maximise the value of their data, our Data & AI services can help turn Microsoft 365 Copilot from a productivity tool into a measurable business advantage.

How Air IT Group can help

Choosing the right Copilot licensing model and rolling it out successfully isn’t always straightforward, and that’s where we can help.

At Air IT Group, we help organisations assess their readiness for Microsoft 365 Copilot, identify security and governance considerations, optimise licensing, and support deployment and user adoption.

From initial readiness assessments through to long-term optimisation, we’ll help ensure your Microsoft 365 environment is secure, compliant and ready to unlock the full value of AI.