Free or paid? Making sense of AI licensing options
Licence options for AI apps are confusing.
Mostly because of questions around security of our data.
Let’s tidy it up, at least for now, until it changes again 😃.
We will focus on Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT. The free, the paid, and the 'included in your Microsoft account'.
Microsoft Copilot: three ways to use it
There are three ways you can use Microsoft Copilot.
One is Copilot Chat, which is free for anyone on the web.
The second is Copilot that is included in your Microsoft business account, the one that you are already paying for.
And the third is when you purchase the extra Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Let’s look at the differences.
Option 1: Copilot Chat (free on the web)
If you go to copilot.microsoft.com without logging in, you can chat with AI, create images, and do all the usual things.
It’s similar to using the free ChatGPT, the free Perplexity, or free Claude, and any of those other AIs.
It’s probably not as good as some of the others, so I’m not sure why you would use this.
My verdict: no, not the free one.
If you’re going to use a free product, go use ChatGPT or Claude.
And in any case, we never share confidential information with free products. So, it's a pretty limiting option.
The free Copilot is also not as good as other free options, so... My verdict is a no for this one.
Option 2: Copilot logged in with your Microsoft business account
Good things start happening when you log in.
When you go to copilot.microsoft.com and sign in with your work account, you’ll see a green shield appear.
That green shield means your chats are protected by Enterprise Data Protection.
I recommend clicking it and reading what it says.
Most people find they’re comfortable sharing with Copilot whatever they were already comfortable sharing with Microsoft.
So, if you’re using Copilot that’s built into your Microsoft environment and logged in with your business account (not personal), it’s a good choice because now you have AI that you can use with your confidential, business data (after you read that enterprise data protection page and decide for yourself, yes?).
Option 3: Copilot for Microsoft 365
Now, this one’s an extra subscription of about $45 AUD or $30 USD per month per person.
It connects Copilot into your Office environment: your emails, calendar, Teams messages, SharePoint files, OneDrive, everything.
That means you can ask questions, and the responses will be grounded in your actual work context.
You can ask about a client, a project, or what’s outstanding in your inbox.
You can choose to search just web, just work, or both combined.
You also get access to power features like Researcher, a deep research tool that’s very loved for tax and legal research, for example. On a side note, if you are using AI today without access to deep research, you are missing out on a significant capability. Researcher is Copilot's deep research, and all the other engines have their version of it too.
You also get notebooks and other functions you don’t get in Copilot without the extra M365 Copilot licence.
Overall, this is your top option with Copilot.
Copilot inside the Microsoft apps
You’ll also find Copilot inside Excel, Word, and PowerPoint as a side panel.
It used to be only available for those with the M365 Copilot, but now it’s available to any Microsoft Business user.
This means that you can work on a spreadsheet, and have Copilot in the spreadsheet with you, chatting to you about the data or helping you figure out how to do things in Excel.
So, whether or not you have the connector, you can now use Copilot directly in your apps.
Should you purchase the M365 Copilot subscription?
If you don’t already have another advanced AI, then yes, you should.
And you should give it to your team too.
They’ll love not having to use the search in Outlook and instead being able to ask Copilot to find things for them, what’s going on with a project, or even what they worked on today for their timesheet.
You can connect other tools like ChatGPT to Outlook, but that exposes more of your data, and I don't see many doing this in our industries.
So, if you’re in Microsoft, Copilot 365 is the safer, integrated choice.
ChatGPT: free, Plus, or Business
Now let’s look at ChatGPT.
For most of us, there are three relevant options: Free, Plus, and Business.
The free one is great for anything that doesn’t involve confidential information.
Never use free accounts for sensitive data.
It’s fantastic for casual use, my dad uses it in his garden to get support in caring for his trees and plants.
For business use, go with ChatGPT Business, and here’s why.
The Plus plan is more of a personal plan. It lets you choose whether OpenAI can train on your data and gives you access to more advanced capabilities.
But with Business, your team members can’t opt in to allow OpenAI to train on their data, which is good.
They also can’t share chats externally, only within your business account.
Data breaches have happened when Plus users shared chats externally with client information in them.
Also, ChatGPT now connects to third-party apps like Outlook and Dropbox.
With the Business editions, the workspace administrator controls which connectors are allowed.
With Plus, each user decides for themselves.
So yes, Plus is a bit cheaper, $20 USD per month instead of $30, but Business gives you control and safety.
ChatGPT: free, Plus, or Business
If you’re guiding your team to use Microsoft Copilot, make sure they sign in with their business account and check that green shield.
If you want to give them even more capability, consider Copilot for Microsoft 365.
It connects everything and adds features like Researcher.
If you’re choosing ChatGPT, give your team the Business edition.
If it’s just for yourself, Plus is fine, as long as you manage the settings properly.
There are others out there, like Claude, Perplexity, and more, but if you want to be where most professional services firms are, these two dominate today.
In my team, everyone has a paid account for at least one of these tools, they tried them both and chose what they prefer. Because I want everyone in my team to use the strongest capabilities out there, and I want them to develop their AI literacy, and that is definitely worth the extra $45 per month for each.
My bottom line: pay the $45 per month per user. Give your team the best capabilities and have them develop their AI literacy.
That's what I do with my team.
And once you pay, should it be Copilot or ChatGPT? Well, that's for another day.
Have fun!
—-
Inbal Rodnay
Guiding Firms in Adopting AI and Automation
Keynote speaker | AI Workshops | Executive briefings | Consulting CIO
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