Microsoft launches Copilot Cowork AI agent with pay‑per‑use pricing

Microsoft announced that Copilot Cowork, an agentic AI feature for Microsoft 365, is now generally available worldwide. The service lets users assign complex, multi‑step projects—such as scheduling meetings, drafting documents, or monitoring web pages—to an autonomous AI agent that executes the work across apps and returns a finished result.

The rollout adds a usage‑based billing model: organizations keep their Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription, but each Copilot Cowork task is charged according to the resources it consumes. Microsoft says the new model “helps companies scale usage without paying for idle capacity.”

Copilot Cowork integrates Anthropic’s Claude models alongside Microsoft’s own offerings, allowing the system to route tasks to the most suitable model. The company is also evaluating a lower‑cost option based on DeepSeek’s V4 model, which could be hosted on Azure. Security partners such as Aembit have added identity‑and‑access‑management tools to govern agent permissions and maintain audit logs.

Satya Nadella highlighted the move as part of an “ecosystem of AI models” that lets customers choose the best fit for cost and capability. The feature is positioned as a shift from chat‑style assistants to persistent AI teammates that handle end‑to‑end workflows.