Microsoft repositions Copilot

Microsoft is shifting Copilot deeper into the Microsoft 365 stack, packaging it with security, identity and agent controls in a new top-tier enterprise bundle. (blogs.microsoft.com) Microsoft announced Microsoft 365 E7 on March 9, 2026, and said the package will be generally available on May 1 at $99 per user per month. The bundle combines Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Entra Suite and Agent 365. (blogs.microsoft.com) (techcommunity.microsoft.com) Agent 365 is the management layer in that package. Microsoft said it will also go on sale separately on May 1 for $15 per user per month, with tools to govern, manage and secure artificial intelligence agents across a company. (blogs.microsoft.com) (techcommunity.microsoft.com) The product changes started earlier. On April 23, 2025, Microsoft recast Microsoft 365 Copilot as a hub for “human-agent collaboration,” adding an Agent Store, enterprise search, notebooks and reasoning agents inside the Microsoft 365 app. (microsoft.com) Microsoft is also changing what runs under the hood. Judson Althoff, chief executive of Microsoft Commercial Business, said on March 9 that Microsoft 365 Copilot is now “model diverse by design,” using OpenAI and Anthropic models rather than betting on one system. (blogs.microsoft.com) That multi-model approach reached users on March 30, when Microsoft rolled out Copilot features that let its Researcher agent use multiple artificial intelligence models in one workflow. Reuters reported the new “Critique” feature pulls work from OpenAI’s GPT models and checks it with Anthropic’s Claude. (reuters.com) The commercial logic is straightforward. Microsoft still sells Microsoft 365 Copilot as an add-on to qualifying plans, with pricing shown at $18 per user per month on its pricing page, but E7 wraps that assistant into a broader package built for procurement teams already buying security, compliance and identity software together. (microsoft.com) (techcommunity.microsoft.com) Microsoft has been under pressure to show that Copilot can become a large business, not just a demo inside Word and Excel. During its fiscal second-quarter 2026 earnings discussion in January, the company said Microsoft 365 Copilot had reached 15 million paid seats. (directionsonmicrosoft.com) The new packaging also reduces Microsoft’s dependence on a single outside model supplier. In the March 9 announcement, the company said Claude is available in mainline Copilot chat through its Frontier program alongside newer OpenAI models. (blogs.microsoft.com) What Microsoft is selling now is less a standalone chatbot than a managed workplace system: one license, one control plane and multiple models inside the same Microsoft 365 estate. The next test starts May 1, when E7 and Agent 365 move from announcement to general availability. (blogs.microsoft.com) (techcommunity.microsoft.com)