Copilot is the AI assistant in Microsoft 365. Think of it as a digital assistant that takes time-consuming work off your hands: drafting text, summarising content, answering questions about your documents. A lot has happened since I wrote this article in December 2023. Today there are two levels and separate pricing for smaller organisations. Here are the essentials, as of November 2026.
Two levels: Copilot Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot
Which features you can use depends on whether your IT team has assigned you a Copilot licence. According to Microsoft, the two levels differ like this:
- Copilot Chat is available to business users with a Microsoft 365 account. It searches the web and works with files you upload. It is also part of Outlook. Agents are only available in a limited form.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot with a licence also accesses your work data: meetings, emails, chats and files. On top of that you get Copilot in the Microsoft 365 apps and agents such as Researcher and Analyst.
Think for a moment: what can Copilot Chat not do without an add-on licence?
How you get to Copilot
- Open m365.cloud.microsoft/chat in your browser.
- Sign in with your Microsoft 365 work account.
- Look under your name: a label there shows which level you have, for example «Copilot Chat (Basic)» or «M365 Copilot (Premium)».
In Outlook you also find Copilot right in the app. Whether Copilot is available in Word, Excel and the other apps depends on your licence.
Examples of what you can do
- Writing emails
- Summarising meetings
- Creating presentations
- Drafting messages to your team
- Analysing data in Excel
- and much more
Exercise
Is Copilot Chat enough or do you need the licence?
What does Copilot cost?
You use Copilot Chat with your Microsoft 365 work account without an add-on licence. For the full feature set you buy an add-on. For organisations with up to 300 users, Microsoft offers Microsoft 365 Copilot Business in Switzerland (Microsoft’s pricing page, in German):
- CHF 17.00 per user per month as standard, on an annual subscription, excluding VAT.
- A promotional price of CHF 14.57 per user per month for the first year, for subscriptions taken out from 1 July to 31 December 2026.
- You need a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription, so Copilot is added on top of your existing licence.
- For selected advanced AI features, Microsoft also charges based on usage.
Larger organisations get Microsoft 365 Copilot as an add-on or in a Microsoft 365 plan with Copilot. Microsoft does not give a CHF price for this on that page. What Copilot costs in total, including the base licence, rollout and training, is worked out in What Microsoft 365 Copilot really costs.
My practical tip
Before you buy licences, it is worth running a test with Copilot Chat. Try your typical tasks, such as drafting an email or summarising a document. Note down where you miss access to your own emails and files. That is exactly where the licence makes the difference. This way you buy specifically for the people who really need that access.
Quick check
Three questions to take away
Conclusion
There is a lot of potential in Copilot for your organisation, provided that you keep your own data in good order and lay the groundwork for using it safely. How to clean up overshared content before you start is covered in Copilot Governance: Fix Oversharing Before Rollout. Open Copilot Chat now and try a task from your everyday work.