Microsoft has been testing adding AI-powered Office apps, the most important feature of Copilot Pro, into the Microsoft 365 subscriptions in recent months. What was previously only available in Australia, New Zealand, and a number of countries across Asia is now expanding to most markets worldwide.

Microsoft hasn't said for how long this "limited time" offer will last, but presumably it will only last for a year or two to help ease the transition between the old pricing and the new pricing. New subscribers won't be offered the option to pay for the Classic plans.

Microsoft is increasing the price of its consumer Microsoft 365 bundle by $3 per month as it adds AI features to various applications.

Microsoft said on Thursday that it is now including Copilot AI features to its Microsoft 365 suite for individual consumers, a day after it rolled out on-demand AI agents for businesses.

Microsoft’s M365 Copilot Chat is a new consumption-based AI product similar to Security Copilot, while the vendor also has license-based GenAI offerings as well.

M365 Copilot Chat is a chat interface powered by OpenAI’s GPT4o that serves up responses based on web data (rather than information held in the Microsoft Graph, as per the paid M365 Copilot subscription). It also includes features such as Copilot Pages and image generation, as well as data protection and IT admin controls at no cost to users.

Microsoft 365 subscribers in Australia, New Zealand, and some Asian markets just got an AI upgrade, along with a huge price increase. How long until customers in the US and Europe see the same?

Microsoft Corp. is raising the price of its package of Office apps for consumers, a bet that subscribers will be willing to cough up more for access to new artificial intelligence tools.

In a blog post Thursday, Microsoft said it’s increasing the price of its Microsoft 365 bundle for consumers by $3 a month.