Microsoft might tempt more businesses to take up its expensive Microsoft 365 Copilot license with some important pricing changes that are coming soon. After it brought the teams responsible for business Copilots and the main Microsoft 365 Copilot together recently, I’m now hearing that the next step is a simplification of the products for Microsoft’s all-important enterprise customers.

Also this week: Microsoft steps up its campus security, a Windows update probably didn’t brick your SSD, and Microsoft AI launches its first in-house models.

It’s no secret that Microsoft has been struggling to sell its Copilot AI assistant to businesses. The steep pricing has put many businesses off paying extra for Microsoft’s AI services, especially when OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been gaining traction in the all-important enterprise market. Microsoft is now getting ready to tempt more businesses into paying for Copilot, with a familiar trick: bundling.

Microsoft currently offers business Copilot access for $30 per user per month, and if you want the extra Copilot for Sales, Service, and Finance options, these have been a standalone extra $20 per user. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s AI plans tell me that the company is about to ax this standalone $20 add-on and bundle Copilot for Sales, Service, and Finance into the main Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription.

This move will take the price of most of Microsoft’s top AI tools down to $30 per user per month, instead of the $50 per user per month businesses have to pay for Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot for Sales, Service, and Finance together — essentially giving away the add-on.

Microsoft is positioning this change as a way to simplify its Copilot subscriptions for businesses, I’m told. It makes it easier for Microsoft’s vast sales teams to convince customers to buy just a single Microsoft 365 Copilot license, instead of the confusing mix of add-ons.

This monetization strategy change is part of a broader AI shakeup across the Microsoft 365 Copilot team and the Business and Industry Copilot (BIC) teams. Charles Lamanna and his BIC team — which focuses on Copilot inside business apps, low-code platforms, and other industry-specific tools — moved closer to the Microsoft 365 Copilot side of the company in June, in what was a big step in consolidating Microsoft’s various business Copilot offerings. This week, Lamanna announced internally that Microsoft’s Copilot, Agents, and Platform Ecosystem (CAPE) team is also joining BIC, as part of an effort to “bring more business value into the broader M365 agent platform.”

Microsoft is increasingly stepping up its focus on AI agents, much like the rest of the tech industry. Lamanna’s BIC team is currently building out an Agent 365 team, led by Nirav Shah, a 24-year veteran at Microsoft. Agent 365 is being developed as a set of tools to manage AI agents and ensure the security and compliance requirements of businesses are met. The Microsoft Admin Center (MAC) teams are also joining the Agent 365 team, under Shah.

“This is critical to launching Agent 365 later this year,” said Lamanna in his memo. “As agents become part of the workforce, the Microsoft Admin Center will need to evolve into the central hub where both people and agents are managed by IT departments.”

Sources tell me Microsoft is planning to announce Agent 365 at its Ignite conference later this year. The introduction of Agent 365 and the pricing shakeup for Copilot means Microsoft is now focused on three areas of monetizing Copilot: Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Dynamics 365.

Microsoft plans to monetize autonomous agents that aren’t part of a Copilot license through Copilot Studio, its tool that lets anyone build custom AI agents. Copilot Studio works on a pay-as-you-go basis, where businesses pay for “messages” — a measure of the time and effort for an agent to retrieve information and respond to prompts. Microsoft is changing this to Copilot Credits, which will be used against Dynamics 365 prebuilt agents, Power Apps “agentic experiences,” or Microsoft 365 prebuilt agents.

I asked Microsoft about its upcoming Copilot changes, but the company refused to comment.

All of these Copilot monetization changes and AI reshuffles now mean that the fragmented brand of Copilot inside Microsoft is increasingly aligning under Rajesh Jha, Microsoft’s head of experiences and devices. A year ago nobody really owned Copilot inside Microsoft, with three different leaders responsible for Copilot inside Office, the consumer Copilot, and the teams building Copilot for Sales and other role-based Copilots. Now, the teams building Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft’s AI agent vision all report up to Jha. Microsoft still has its consumer Copilot separate under Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman.

As with any reshuffle, changes mean that some leaders move elsewhere. Lili Cheng took on a newly expanded role of CTO of the BIC team in July, but now she’s leaving BIC to return to Microsoft Research. Cheng joined Microsoft in 1995, and was originally part of the social computing group at Microsoft Research. She’s now the CVP and managing director of the NYC, New England, and Montreal Microsoft Research labs.

A week after Microsoft was forced to lock down a building where protesters got inside vice chair and president Brad Smith’s office, Microsoft continues to beef up its security. Microsoft welcomed back employees from the Labor Day weekend with a security notice about “a few changes we are making in response to recent demonstrations on our Redmond campus.”

Microsoft is limiting employee access to a variety of buildings on its campus, to stop people following employees into buildings. “Because we’ve recently had some people from outside the company use fake Microsoft ID badges, make sure those following you actually swipe their badge and ensure their badge works,” reads a security advisory to Microsoft employees.

The building security changes mean that employees won’t have access to many buildings where they don’t have an assigned desk. I’ve heard from employees over the past week that this has resulted in some lines forming at buildings that have been restricted, particularly if you’re visiting one for a meeting. It has also resulted in some employees not being able to use the dining services in some buildings. 

All of these building changes come as Microsoft is getting ready to announce its return-to-office mandate this month, which may well be further complicated by the ongoing threat of protests at the company’s headquarters. 

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