Microsoft Expands Copilot Into a Workplace AI Platform
The redesigned Copilot app combines chat, agents and workplace tools, while longer-running AI tasks use Copilot Credits under a metered billing model.
Microsoft is expanding Copilot from a workplace assistant into a broader AI platform that combines conversational tools, agents and workplace applications under subscription and usage-based billing.
The Microsoft Copilot app is available on desktop, the web and mobile. Its navigation includes Chat, Library, Agents, Search and Cowork, bringing conversational assistance, automated tools and work-context features into one product.
Microsoft’s standard Copilot user subscription license includes Chat, Copilot features inside Microsoft 365 applications, ready-made agents such as Researcher and Analyst, and tools for building agents.
The company separates those core features from longer-running or resource-intensive AI tasks through usage-based billing. Charges are measured in Copilot Credits, which Microsoft describes as a shared currency for AI operations across its platform.
Usage-based billing currently covers Cowork, applications built with Cowork and the Work IQ API. Work IQ is designed to ground AI systems in an organization’s work context.
Microsoft introduced Scout on June 2 as its first Autopilot agent. The company describes Autopilots as always-on agents with their own identity that operate within permissions and policies set by users and organizations.
The approach reflects Microsoft’s effort to make AI a central layer for workplace software rather than a feature limited to individual prompts. “AI can now do genuine, economically valuable work,” Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer for AI at Work, said.
