Microsoft Copilot

What it does

Microsoft Copilot is the company's general-purpose AI assistant, available free in Windows, Edge, and Bing. It handles everyday tasks like drafting text, searching the web, summarizing content, and generating images using DALL-E. It serves as the entry-level Microsoft AI experience before users upgrade to the deeper Microsoft 365 Copilot integration.

Strengths

• Mid-market organizations can standardize on Copilot as the default AI interface across the workforce, with upgrade paths to 365 Copilot for power users.
• Enterprise IT teams can deploy Copilot at scale across Windows devices with centralized policy management and security controls.
• Small businesses get a free AI starting point within familiar Microsoft tools before evaluating the paid Microsoft 365 Copilot upgrade.
• Small teams using Windows and Edge get a built-in AI assistant without additional cost for everyday productivity tasks.
• Free access to a capable GPT-4-powered assistant for everyday writing, research, and image generation - no subscription required.

Watch-outs

• Significantly less capable than Copilot 365: The free Microsoft Copilot has no access to organizational emails, documents, or Teams conversations — it is a general web assistant, not the productivity-layer AI embedded in Office apps.
• Web browsing results can be inconsistent: Copilot web search integration produces variable quality responses — complex research tasks are better served by dedicated AI search tools like Perplexity.
• Image generation has content restrictions: DALL-E-powered image generation within Copilot applies conservative content filters that frequently block legitimate creative requests — specialist tools like Midjourney offer more creative flexibility.

Pricing

Free in Windows 11, Edge, and Bing. {{microsoft-365}} Copilot (the deeper integration) is $30/user/month add-on.