en.Wedoany.com Reported - On June 16, local time, Microsoft announced that Copilot Cowork is now officially available to Microsoft 365 Copilot customers worldwide. This AI agent product, designed for enterprise office scenarios, can execute complex, long-duration, multi-tool collaborative tasks. After users set a work objective, the system can retrieve emails, meetings, files, data, and business tools within the Microsoft 365 environment, generate a plan, and continuously drive the task forward.

Unlike traditional conversational AI, Copilot Cowork's core positioning is not to "answer questions," but to "get work done."

Microsoft stated in the announcement that Copilot Cowork has been in preview within the Frontier program for three months, with over half of Fortune 500 companies using the tool, including clients such as Accenture, Avanade, Capital Group, Koch, Ooredoo Qatar, and Zurich Insurance. Cases disclosed by Microsoft show that one team used Cowork to compare nearly 4,000 files across two product versions, compressing work that might have taken weeks into a much shorter timeframe. Another sales team handed over a stalled sales pipeline to Cowork for analysis, and the system returned a list of high-risk opportunities, flagging which follow-ups had been interrupted.

These cases illustrate that AI agents are transitioning from "assisting with writing and information retrieval" to "executing tasks across systems."

Regarding billing, Microsoft has simultaneously introduced a consumption-based pricing model. Copilot Cowork requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot user subscription license, after which billing is based on the actual consumption incurred by running tasks. Microsoft stated that the price of a single task is determined by four factors: model invocation, context retrieval, tool invocation, and runtime duration. In other words, the more complex the task, the more data invoked, and the longer it runs, the higher the cost.

Microsoft's PayGo price is $0.01 per Copilot Credit, and it also offers a P3 prepaid capacity plan, allowing enterprises to commit to a certain usage volume in advance in exchange for a discount. For tenants who participated in the Frontier program and used Cowork between March 30 and June 16, Microsoft provides a transition grace period, with billing for related usage starting only on July 1, 2026.

Behind the pay-as-you-go model lies a change in the cost structure of AI agent products.

Traditional enterprise software is typically charged per seat, allowing companies to predict expenses relatively easily. However, agent tools continuously invoke large models, enterprise knowledge bases, and external tools while executing tasks, and a complex task might run continuously for several hours. Charles Lamanna, Executive Vice President of Microsoft Copilot, Agents and Platform, told Axios in an interview that test results showed Copilot Cowork could not be offered on an unlimited basis because some users run hundreds of tasks per week, leading to significant productivity gains but also potentially rapid cost increases.

To control costs, Microsoft emphasized that Copilot Cowork uses a multi-model architecture. At launch, the product runs Anthropic models, including Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 4.6. In Frontier access, customers can also use GPT 5.5, and Microsoft's own model, Cowork 1, is planned for release in the coming weeks. Microsoft stated that Cowork 1 will provide a lower-cost option for everyday Copilot tasks, helping enterprises handle cost-sensitive workloads.

Microsoft has also added cost management features in this release. Enterprise administrators can decide whether to enable Cowork, which users can use it, set budget caps at the tenant or user level, and configure usage alerts. Microsoft also stated that users will be able to see the credit cost consumed by individual tasks when running them, thereby improving cost transparency within the enterprise.

In terms of application scenarios, Copilot Cowork is primarily aimed at knowledge work, sales management, technical teams, meeting preparation, and cross-departmental collaboration. Microsoft previously introduced that the tool can prepare meeting materials based on emails, internal documents, and calendar information, as well as generate briefing documents, analysis materials, and presentation files, saving the results in the Microsoft 365 environment for teams to further modify.

This indicates that enterprise AI is entering a new phase: transitioning from a single-query Q&A tool to a digital colleague authorized to execute processes.

However, the pay-as-you-go model also means that enterprises deploying AI agents will require stronger budget management and permission governance. For companies heavily reliant on office software, file systems, and internal collaboration platforms, the value of Copilot Cowork depends not only on model capabilities but also on its ability to deliver complex office workflows as verifiable results while remaining compliant, secure, permission-controlled, and cost-effective.

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