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Making sense of many Copilots like many MS Office products

418 words Filed in: AI, Microsoft, productivity

Sign me up. Photo by Andrea_44, CC.

Five Copilots, one brand — and one table to explain what each does.

"Copilot" now refers to multiple AI products from Microsoft, depending on whether you're chatting, coding, writing, automating, or building agents. Many people assume "Copilot is Copilot," but each flavour does something different and runs on different licensing.

I'm not alone in this confusion. Tony Redmond's "The Confusing Renaming of Microsoft 365 Copilot" captures the frustration well, and Microsoft's own community forums are full of licensing questions.

Here's a compact reference table I've found helpful giving to colleagues to keep everything straight.

The flavours of Copilot: quick reference#

Copilot flavour What it's for Philosophical MS Office equivalent
Chat — Microsoft Copilot (Free) General AI chat in browser/Windows; no access to your files or organisation WordPad: useful but limited
Chat — Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat (included) Chat available inside M365 environment; still not context-aware Office Home trial: same environment, limited capabilities
Chat — Microsoft 365 Copilot (licensed) Full AI across Word/Excel/Outlook/Teams using organisational data Office Professional: everything unlocked and integrated
Chat — Copilot Pro (personal) Personal AI inside Word/Excel/PowerPoint; for individuals/freelancers Office Home & Student: full features, but personal only
Development — Copilot Studio Build custom AI agents connected to internal systems/data PowerApps: build your own tools with a graphical tool
Development — GitHub Copilot AI pair programmer for code and GitHub Visual Studio IntelliSense: code-focused

Common misunderstandings#

  • Having Copilot in the browser doesn't mean you have Copilot in Word.
  • Copilot Pro for individuals is not the same as the enterprise version.
  • Copilot Studio isn't included by default — you need the right licence.
  • GitHub Copilot lives in your editor, not your spreadsheets.
  • There's no "full Copilot" licence. Paying for one Copilot doesn't unlock the others — they're separate purchases. M365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Copilot Studio are each billed independently.

A note on licensing#

These products are licensed separately. The name "Copilot" does not imply shared rights or entitlements. It's completely normal to have access to one Copilot but not another.

Microsoft's official "Decide which Copilot is right for you" page attempts to clarify this, and Get Support's comparison breaks down the free vs. licensed differences. But I think these ultimately still come up short in helping humans understand as the guides are too convoluted and don't mention the GitHub Copilot gap.

Further reading#