for the first time, Microsoft(NASDAQ: MSFT) has revealed key metrics for its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot and assistant Copilot, a key piece of the big conglomerate’s AI strategy and somewhat seen as a competitor to other chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Investors have long been trying to understand how well Copilot resonates with customers and whether it can truly be one of the leading AI chatbots. The metrics revealed about Copilot were shocking in more ways than one.
As described on Microsoft’s website, “Copilot is a conversational, AI-powered assistant that helps increase productivity and streamline workflows by providing contextual assistance, automating routine tasks, and analyzing data.” Examples of tasks that Copilot can perform include writing presentations and reports by generating content and suggesting edits and revisions, analyzing data and creating charts, and summarizing email chains and composing emails.
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Different Microsoft Copilot plans include different Copilot assistants and capabilities. The free version of Copilot gives users access to Microsoft’s AI chatbot and the ability to generate AI-powered images. Microsoft 365 Personal offers users greater limits on how to use AI features in the Microsoft 365 office suite and Copilot app, advanced security, and up to 1 terabyte of cloud storage for files and photos.
The Microsoft 365 Premium plan offers higher limits and more app usage than Microsoft 365 Personal. Copilot Studio allows users to create, test, and publish agents, while granting access to generative AI plugins to enhance those agents.
On Microsoft’s most recent earnings call, management said Microsoft 365 Copilot has 15 million paid Copilot seats, up 160% year over year. Businesses can pay $30 per user per month for Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Additionally, Copilot seems to be resonating deeply with some companies, as many of Microsoft’s customers now have more than 35,000 seats using Copilot, including Fiserv, EngUniversity of Kentucky, University of Manchester and the US Department of the Interior.
Management also said Copilot saw average conversations per user double year-over-year, and daily active users increased tenfold. Copilot also has a checkout feature where Microsoft has partnered with payment and e-commerce sites like Paypal, Shopifyand Stripe so users can make purchases directly from Copilot. Finally, Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot, which is for developers, had 4.7 million paid subscribers, up 75% year over year.
While growth may be strong, Copilot adoption is still low among Microsoft’s total user base. Microsoft 365 Copilot’s 15 million paid users represent only about 3.3% of the company’s total 450 million 365 subscribers. GitHub Copilot’s 4.7 million paid subscribers represent only about 3.1% of GitHub’s total of 150 million registered developers.
Now, it is of course possible that the adoption will simply take longer. However, Microsoft has already invested hundreds of billions in AI-related infrastructure and services, and it still doesn’t appear to be a real competitor to some of the bigger chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
“M365 rev growth isn’t accelerating because of Copilot, many Copilot checks don’t suggest a strong usage ramp (we plan to refresh our own checks if we’ve missed a usage ramp), and the model market seems crowded and capital intensive.” UBS analyst Karl Keirstead wrote in a research note following Microsoft’s latest earnings report. “We think Microsoft needs to ‘prove’ that these are good investments.”
Clearly, the market wants more. If you think about the average person, how many of them know about ChatGPT and how many of them know about Copilot? Clearly, there is much work to be done to improve Copilot adoption. I still think Microsoft will likely be one of the main beneficiaries of AI adoption, especially in its Azure and cloud services businesses, but Copilot leaves a lot to be desired right now.
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Microsoft has finally revealed how many paying Copilot customers it has. The answer was shocking for more reasons than one. was originally published by The Motley Fool
