Microsoft 365 Family and Personal plans are getting Copilot AI integration into their Office apps but it comes with a big price increase and many limits to what people get for the extra cost.
Customers in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand have seen massive prices rises in Microsoft 365 Family and Personal plans – over 30% increase in some cases. This happened in November 2024 but most people only notice when they get their renewal notice.
The subscription rate rise comes with a major new benefit that’s not obvious and more limited than it appears.
If you don’t like the price increase, Microsoft might offer to keep the old rate without Copilot. Look for a Microsoft 365 Classic option to appear if you try to cancel your subscription.
Microsoft 365 in those countries now comes with Copilot AI features integrated into the Office apps, like this side-pane in Excel which can interact with the open sheet.
Or the Copilot icon next to Word paragraphs
Copilot in Word – summarising, rewriting, drafting
Copilot in Outlook – drafting messages/replies, summarising email threads
Copilot in Excel – writing formulas, analysing data
Copilot in PowerPoint – making slides from text.
Copilot in OneNote – arrange information, make lists
Who gets it?
These additional features should be appearing in apps for Microsoft 365 users in these countries.
- Australia 🇦🇺
- Malaysia 🇲🇾
- New Zealand 🇳🇿
- Singapore 🇸🇬
- Taiwan 🇹🇼
- Thailand 🇹🇭
Strictly speaking, users with Microsoft 365 purchases based on those countries, not the current location.
If Copilot isn’t appearing on the Home tab of Office apps, try updating Microsoft 365 apps and perhaps logging out and back into the Microsoft account within the Office apps.
The price increase will apply to the next renewal date and most retailers are already selling at the higher price. More on the price rise coming soon.
But before you get too excited, there’s a lot of ‘gotchas’ in this addition to Microsoft Office …
A limited Copilot in Office
It’s not the fully paid Copilot Pro (which has a monthly fee) instead it’s a limited Copilot Pro within Office. Each month a user gets a bank of “AI credits” which are used whenever Copilot is used. If you run out of AI Credits there are two choices:
- Wait until the start of the next month
OR - Pay for full Copilot Pro
In other words, Microsoft is hoping to entice people into trying Copilot within Office with a limited trial.
About AI credits
An AI credit is used each time you use Copilot within Windows or Microsoft 365 apps.
All Microsoft 365 users have an allocation of AI Credits, what’s happening now is an increase in the AI credits for one Microsoft 365 user only per plan.
Writing/rewriting text, making an image, summarizing an email thread, making a table, writing a formula and many more will all use one AI credit each time.
The number of AI credits available appears as a number, next to a yellow icon. Here’s how it looks in Windows 11 Paint (for a Copilot Pro user).
Microsoft says the available AI credits is displayed on this Microsoft Account page.
How many AI credits?
The number of AI credits you get depends on what Microsoft 365 plan you have.
Free Microsoft accounts get 15 credits a month (for comparison)
Microsoft 365 Personal users get 60 AI credits each month.
Microsoft 365 Family plan owners only get 60 AI credits per month (important, see below)
Copilot Pro users get “extensive usage” (Microsoft’s words). No number is given.
The AI credit ‘bank’ is reset at the start of each calendar month.
The HUGE devil in the detail …
Buried in the fine print is one huge limitation of the extra AI credits for Microsoft 365 Family users.
“AI benefits are only available to the subscription owner and cannot be shared with additional Microsoft 365 Family members. “
The extra AI credits are only given to the owner of a Microsoft 365 Family plan,
Unlike every other Microsoft 365 feature which is given to each of the (up to) six users equally.
AI credits are only for the plan owner or “Subscriber” with a capital “S” as Microsoft is now calling them.
Obviously, that’s not an issue for Microsoft 365 Personal plans. It will be the source of much confusion and frustration to Family plan users who are used to getting the same features for all.
Other Family plan users (sharing a plan owned by another) only get the base 15 AI credits per month.
Also Designer
A related addition in the affected countries is Designer (the online service) within Word and PowerPoint, though the details are a mystery.
Microsoft describes it like this:
“In addition to accessing Designer within apps like Word and PowerPoint, you can also use the standalone Designer app on the web and mobile.”
We’ve not seen the Designer service integrated into Word or PowerPoint. There’s already a ‘Designer’ feature in PowerPoint and a similar Designer in Word on the web to redesign slides or documents but that’s different from the newer Designer graphics tool.
‘Standalone Designer’ is already available to everyone both on the web and a mobile app, so it’s not clear what additional benefit Microsoft 365 customers are getting.
Quick Thoughts
This is a big change and there’s a lot to consider. Some initial impressions:
- It’s trial ballon limited to some countries – for now. If successful, for Microsoft, it will be expanded. Australia and New Zealand are often used a corporate ‘guinea pigs’ for marketing strategies.
- It’s a disguised price increase for Microsoft 365. The very limited Copilot extra doesn’t justify 22% to 31% price hikes.
- If this trial works, from Microsoft’s POV, then it’ll spread to other countries. Microsoft has been wanting to raise the price of Microsoft 365 globally and this might be how they do it.
- This is an attempt to get more individuals paying for Copilot Pro. It’s not so much a new Microsoft 365 feature as a lure to pay more to Microsoft.
- 60 AI credits a month isn’t a lot, around two a day. Microsoft knows that and hopes people will use up their credits and pay for Copilot Pro.
- Limiting the 60 AI credits to the Family plan owner is sure to cause confusion, especially since Microsoft’s tricky wording is intended to hide this big limitation.
- Maybe Microsoft is limiting access to Copilot within Office to reduce the demand on their still overtaxed AI cloud services? Or perhaps they figure that only the Family plan owner has the money to pay for Copilot Pro?
