In July, Microsoft released Microsoft 365 Copilot at a list price of $30 per user per month. Investors were so excited that Microsoft’s share price rose 4% on the same day. As a result, Microsoft’s market value grew by roughly the same amount as the annual budget of the Finnish government in one day.
The $30 monthly price also attracted other kinds of comments. The pricing of the service seemed bold to many, especially since the additional price almost corresponds to what many organizations already use for Microsoft cloud services. But is the price right?
It is easy to start thinking about the price based on the seller’s production costs. Developing and integrating artificial intelligence into products is a huge investment. As well as the amount of hardware that spins AI models to respond to the constant requests of millions of users. The competition is fierce, so the development of AI services will require continuous investments. Information about this in itself does not make the buyer participate in the collections.
It’s also fun but useless to compare apples to oranges and wonder what else money can buy. The employee can get coffee in the vending machine for a month, but not a company bicycle. At the end of the day, however, as a customer, there is only one real angle of approach to looking at the price – will the license investment I make pay for itself?
Make knowledge work more efficient with AI
Artificial intelligence is the megatechnology of the decade, and its great promise is to make knowledge work more efficient in one fell swoop. When Copilot summarises dozens of pages of documents for you in no time, how much time is saved? When you can reply to emails with context-appropriate texts, what else can you do with that time? When meeting notes are created automatically, can the meeting secretary find better things to do? When you don’t need to hire a production company to make a launch video because artificial intelligence makes the video for you, where else would you put the saved ten thousand euros?
Thirty $ does not even cover the average knowledge worker’s one-hour salary including side costs. If, based on its promises, AI saves an hour of work from the user per month, it will pay for itself. This would be an exceptionally weak artificial intelligence, because based on the usage scenarios presented in advance, it is realistic to expect that instead of the individual hours saved, we will be talking about dozens of saved hours. Especially since organizations will be able to customize AI to suit their own needs.
I would also think the other way around: can anyone afford not to test this technology? Your competitors will take advantage of it.
Boost Your Work with Copilot, Azure OpenAI, and More – free webinar
Are you curious about how Artificial Intelligence can help you, and your organization? Do you want to learn about the new AI features in Microsoft 365? If yes, then join us for this free webinar where we show what is available, and how to get started with Microsoft 365 Copilot and AI.
The webinar will conclude with a summary of the key takeaways and how to get started with M365 + AI. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn more how AI can help you and your organization.
Arttu Arstila
Consulting & Training
Arttu on yksi Sulavan perustajista ja Lead Microsoft 365 Architect. Hän keskittyy Microsoftin pilviteknologioiden konsultointiin projektien eri vaiheissa esiselvityksistä ja tiekartoista käyttöönottoihin ja tukeen.