Microsoft brings Copilot AI assistant to small businesses and launches a premium tier for individuals

Microsoft said on Tuesday that small businesses can now subscribe to its Copilot virtual assistant in the company's productivity apps. And consumers who pay for the Microsoft 365 software can sign up for a new paid version of Copilot.

The updates will help Microsoft expose more of its customers to generative artificial intelligence, a technology startup OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot popularized last year that can compose natural-sounding text with a person's brief written command. Expanding access might help the company start to cover the costs of building data center infrastructure that enables AI.

Investors have been betting on Microsoft to capitalize on generative AI demand in operating systems, cloud, productivity, web search and security, even as it faces competition from the likes of Amazon and Google. Last week Microsoft reclaimed from Apple the title of most valuable publicly traded company.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, has been conveying lately that AI lies at the center of the software maker's identity. "Our vision is pretty straightforward. We are the Copilot company," Nadella said at Microsoft's Ignite conference in Seattle in November.

Microsoft started offering Copilot for Microsoft 365 — drawing on OpenAI's large language models — to large companies in November and to faculty and staff at educational institutions in December. For them, the add-on costs $30 per person per month on top of existing subscription costs.

Now, small businesses that pay for Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Business Standard can sign up for up to 299 licenses at $30 per person per month, Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's head of Windows and Surface, wrote in a blog post.

Additionally, he wrote, Microsoft is getting rid of the 300-seat minimum for