Your IT vendor is probably pushing Microsoft 365 Copilot right now. Here's what they're not telling you.

What Microsoft Copilot Actually Is

Microsoft Copilot isn't one product — it's a family of AI tools layered into products you already use:

  • Copilot in Word: Drafts documents, summarizes text, rewrites sections
  • Copilot in Excel: Analyzes data, generates formulas, spots trends
  • Copilot in Teams: Summarizes meeting transcripts, generates action items
  • Copilot in Outlook: Drafts replies, summarizes threads, prioritizes inbox
  • Copilot in PowerPoint: Generates slide decks from a prompt or document

The pitch is simple: it's already in your Microsoft 365 subscription apps, so there's no new software to install. Your team keeps working in the tools they know. The AI shows up where the work happens.

That's a genuinely compelling argument — especially if your team is already deep in the Microsoft ecosystem.

What It Costs

Microsoft 365 Copilot costs $30 per user per month, on top of your existing M365 subscription. For a 10-person team, that's $300/month — $3,600/year — before you've counted any training or adoption costs.

There's no free tier. There's no trial. You pay for seats whether employees use it or not.

This is the first major friction point for SMBs.

The Honest Comparison: Copilot vs. ChatGPT vs. Claude

Feature Copilot ($30/user/mo) ChatGPT Plus ($20/user/mo) Claude Pro ($20/user/mo)
Microsoft 365 integration Deep (Word, Excel, Teams) None native None native
Document drafting Good Excellent Excellent
Data analysis Good (Excel) Good (Code Interpreter) Good
Meeting summaries Excellent (Teams) Requires Otter/Zoom Requires Otter/Zoom
Writing quality Good Excellent Excellent
Context window Limited Large Very large
Enterprise data privacy Strong Good (Enterprise plan) Good
Price per user/month $30 $20 $20

The pattern is clear: if your team lives in Microsoft Teams and has most of its work inside M365 apps, Copilot's integrations are genuinely valuable. If your team is more flexible about tools, ChatGPT and Claude deliver more output per dollar.

Where Copilot Wins

Meeting-heavy teams. If your team spends 20+ hours/week in Teams meetings, Copilot's transcription and action item generation alone can pay for the subscription. Missing a meeting and getting a two-sentence summary instead of reading 40 pages of transcript is a real time save.

Excel power users. Copilot in Excel is legitimately impressive for teams that use complex spreadsheets. "What are the top 3 trends in this data?" is faster than writing formulas or pivoting manually.

Formal document workflows. Legal, compliance, HR, and finance teams that draft documents inside Word benefit from having AI where the writing happens. No copy-paste between apps.

Outlook inbox management. High-volume email teams can use Copilot to surface what needs a response vs. what can wait. For executives or customer-facing roles handling 100+ emails/day, this compounds.

Where Copilot Struggles

Small teams without Microsoft-heavy workflows. If your team runs on Google Workspace, Notion, Slack, and Zoom — Copilot's integrations simply don't apply. You're paying $30/user for a general AI assistant that's worse than ChatGPT at $20.

Prompt-heavy work. The Copilot "chat" interface (Copilot.microsoft.com) trails ChatGPT and Claude for open-ended writing, analysis, and research tasks. Microsoft's model is decent but not best-in-class for freeform use.

Adoption requires training. This is the part vendors don't talk about: Copilot is only useful if your team knows how to prompt it. A button inside Word does not turn a reluctant employee into an AI power user. Without role-specific training on what to ask and how to ask it, adoption craters. Microsoft's own research shows that companies get 2–3x better outcomes from Copilot when they invest in structured onboarding — not just a quick demo.

Teams pricing. Copilot licenses are individual. If half your team barely uses it, you still pay full price. There's no usage-based pricing.

The Right Question for Your SMB

Don't ask "Should we use Microsoft Copilot?" Ask: "Where does our team spend the most time that AI could accelerate?"

If the answer is "Teams meetings and Excel" → Copilot is probably worth it.

If the answer is "Writing emails, drafting proposals, researching prospects, building presentations from scratch" → ChatGPT or Claude will serve you better per dollar.

If the answer is "We're not sure" → start there. A 14-day sprint where 2-3 employees experiment with a $20/month ChatGPT plan will teach you more than any vendor demo.

The Bigger Issue: Tool Access Isn't the Problem

Here's what most SMBs miss: they spend weeks debating which AI tool to buy, and five minutes on how to train employees to use it.

The data is consistent: the difference between AI tools that deliver ROI and AI tools that collect dust is training. Not the tool selection. Not the integration. Not the price.

A team that understands how to write effective prompts, when to use AI vs. go manual, and how to verify AI outputs will outperform a team with better tools and no training — every time.

Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude — all three are capable enough. The constraint is skills, not software.

What to Do This Week

  1. Audit where your team actually spends time. Count hours in Teams/Zoom meetings. Count time in Excel. Count time drafting documents. That map tells you which tool is worth paying for.
  2. Run a 2-week trial with 2-3 employees. Pick one AI tool, assign one use case per employee, measure time saved. Real usage beats vendor claims.
  3. Invest in training alongside the tool. Whichever AI you pick, your team needs to know how to use it. Role-specific training — not a generic "intro to AI" session — is the difference between adoption and shelfware.

OpenSkills AI trains your team on Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and Claude — with role-specific paths for sales, support, marketing, finance, and operations. 14-day free trial, no credit card required.

Start your free trial →

OpenSkills AI teaches SMB teams how to use AI tools effectively. Role-specific training with practical prompts your team can use immediately.