The frenzy for AI chatbots knows no bounds, and Microsoft is expanding the capabilities of its Copilot assistant this week by rolling out a new $20/month subscription tier called Copilot Pro.

This is an important step forward for Microsoft's Copilot business, as it is now a business, not just an intriguing widget on the Windows 11 desktop. While much of it is about new features in Pro, there is also a new feature in the base Copilot app: Copilot GPT.

CopilotGPTs will be rolling out to Microsoft Copilot users starting this week, and are basically custom versions of Copilot that focus on specific interest areas, such as cooking, fitness, and travel. This is a bit like the stunt Meta pulled when it used celebrities as the face of its AI chatbots that specialize in specific areas such as fitness, golf, and Dungeons & Dragons.

Also, if you use Microsoft 365 apps (Excel, Outlook, Word, etc.) for your business, the company has unlocked more than 300 seats to purchase access to Copilot for Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Business Standard plan customers should also be aware that it is now available for $30 per person per month. [If you as an individual want to access Copilot with these apps, you will need both a Copilot Pro subscription and a subscription to either a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family plan.

Thus, there are several different aspects to Microsoft's announcement this week, but Copilot Pro is the star of the show.

The big news from Microsoft this week is the announcement of Copilot Pro. The original Copilot service will continue to be available for Windows and the web, but will not include all the new features that will be included in Copilot Pro.

Copilot Access in Microsoft 365 Apps: Starting this week, if you are a Microsoft Copilot Pro subscriber and also subscribe to a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family plan, you will be able to use select Microsoft 365 apps to Copilot access will be available in select Microsoft 365 apps. Specifically, Copilot will be available in Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word on PC, Mac, and iPad. However, Copilot support in Excel is currently in preview and limited to the English version only.

Priority access to the latest models: The base Copilot has until recently been running on the relatively advanced GPT-4 model, which has just been upgraded to the improved GPT-4 Turbo model. However, Copilot Pro subscribers have priority access to this new model during peak usage times; Microsoft claims that this model offers faster performance than the base GPT-4, and in the future will offer Copilot Pro users the freedom to In the future, Microsoft plans to roll out the ability for Copilot Pro users to switch between models at will to customize their experience.

Improved Image Generation: Previously, Copilot was able to generate images from text prompts by using the Bing Image Creator AI art generator. Microsoft has rebranded Bing Image Creator as Designer's Image Creator and is rebranding it as Image Creator, and if you are a Copilot Pro subscriber, you will enjoy a superior usage experience.

Most notably, instead of every Copilot Pro subscriber getting about 15 boosts per day, they will get 100 boosts. Since the "boosts" are used to generate images, there is more scope to play around with image creation. Microsoft claims that Pro users can get more detailed images from Image Creator and can get images in landscape format.

Build Your Own Copilot GPT (coming soon): This feature is not yet implemented, but Microsoft will allow Copilot Pro users to design their own Copilot GPT using the new Copilot GPT Builder tool

above.

As mentioned above, Copilot GPTs are a new feature of the Copilot and are designed to provide more useful advice on specific topics because they are specifically trained on those topics.

Microsoft clearly wants to start building more business on top of its growing pile of AI services, so expect Copilot to become more capable, more reliable to use, and more deeply embedded in all of Microsoft's services.

Let's not forget that this is the year that Windows Copilot will have its own key on the Windows keyboard. I think Microsoft itself was a bit surprised at how quickly and effectively the launch of Bing with ChatGPT last year saturated the tech industry with AI envy.

Will this type of tool be next on the Xbox? Only time will tell, but for now it is clear that Copilot is about to become big business for Microsoft. We will have to wait and see how the performance and functionality of the service will be affected over the next year.