Let’s summarize what we have from Microsoft now:
- M365 Copilot, M365 Copilot in Excel, Power Point, Word, OneNote and other Microsoft products;
- Copilot Studio to create a custom chatbot experience;
- Sharepoint agent and custom Sharepoint agents to work with a Sharepoint knowledge source;
- Custom agents created within M365 Copilot.
What we have from the functional perspective?
| Technology | Description |
|---|---|
| M365 Copilot, M365 Copilot in Excel etc. | Agents used as assistants to various work-related tasks. Their task is to help within the context of a product. |
| Custom agents created within M365 Copilot | Agents used to expand the functionalities of M365 Copilot and to specialize in various tasks. |
| Copilot Studio | A tool to create and integrate custom agents with various knowledge sources. |
| Sharepoint agent and custom Sharepoint agents | Agents to work with Sharepoint knowledge source only. |
What about the licensing?
| Technology | Pricing | Access |
|---|---|---|
| M365 Copilot | – 30$/month (annual commitment) – 31.50$/month (monthly) |
Access to M365 Copilot and Microsoft agents in various products, like Excel, Word, Power Point etc. |
| Custom agents created within M365 Copilot | included in the M365 Copilot license | Access to creating custom agents used within the context of M365 Copilot, only from the M365 Copilot chat front-end. |
| Copilot Studio | – 0.01$ per message (pay-as-you-go pricing) – 200$ per 25000 messages/month (tenant-wide license, Copilot Studio User license needs to be assigned to the user separately) – limited functionality included in the M365 Copilot license |
Access to creating custom agents for various purposes and knowledge sources with the ability to publish them to many channels, like Teams, custom website, Messenger, WhatsApp etc. |
| Sharepoint agent and custom Sharepoint agents | – included in the M365 Copilot license – in the future: possibility to use them within Copilot Studio pay-as-you-go plan |
Access to Sharepoint agent, which can answer various questions related to Sharepoint site content. It also gives the access to creating custom Sharepoint agents, which can be set in a Sharepoint library. |
Which is up to what from my perspective?
| Technology | Purpose |
|---|---|
| M365 Copilot | Help employee in many work-related tasks – creating Excel formulas, preparing slides for a meeting, assisting in writing. Should be considered first, before thinking about creating a custom agent in Copilot Studio. |
| Custom agents created within M365 Copilot | Extend the functionalities of M365 Copilot. Should be considered first, when the user already has the license for M365 Copilot and needs some additional functionalities. |
| Copilot Studio | Create a custom chatbot. It should be considered after we decide that M365 Copilot license is not fulfilling the requirements, e.g. it’s too expensive, doesn’t give the neccessary functionalities etc. |
| Sharepoint agent and custom Sharepoint agents | Help with finding information in Sharepoint. It should be considered as a first option if the datasource that we’d like to use is Sharepoint. If possible, we should leverage the existing Sharepoint agent, instead of creating a custom one, unless it’s really necessary. |
What about your thoughts? Share them in the comments! 🤩
Artur Stepniak
Reference:
Power Platform Licensing Guide December 2024: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2085130
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot/enterprise#Pricing