Microsoft Copilot Review

What Microsoft Copilot is and who makes it

Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft's AI assistant, built on OpenAI models and woven into the software most Indian offices already run on. That is the entire proposition. Copilot is not competing to be the smartest model in the category, because underneath it is largely the same technology as ChatGPT. It is competing on being present inside Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams, Windows and Edge, where the work actually happens.

The name causes confusion, so it is worth being precise. There are at least three different things called Copilot. The free consumer assistant at copilot.microsoft.com and in the Windows taskbar. Copilot Pro, a paid consumer tier that adds AI features inside the desktop Office apps for individuals. And Microsoft 365 Copilot, the business product that costs considerably more per user and connects to your organisation's own data through Microsoft Graph. GitHub Copilot, for developers, is a separate product entirely.

Key features in depth

Excel. This is the strongest argument for Copilot. Describe what you want in plain English and it writes the formula, builds the pivot, cleans the column or explains what an inherited spreadsheet is doing. For Indian finance teams, accountants and analysts who live in Excel, this saves more time than any other AI feature in any product.

Outlook. Summarise a forty-message thread before you reply. Draft a response in a specified tone. Extract the actual asks from a long chain. Anyone managing client correspondence will feel this immediately.

Word. Draft from a prompt, rewrite a paragraph, adjust tone, or generate a document from an existing file. Competent rather than exceptional, and behind Claude on prose quality.

PowerPoint. Turn a Word document into a deck outline, or generate slides from a brief. It gets you a structure, not a finished presentation.

Teams. Meeting transcription, summaries and action items. On the business tier this is one of the most immediately valuable features for distributed Indian teams working across time zones with global clients.

Windows integration. A sidebar assistant that can answer questions, change some system settings and work with what is on screen.

Copilot Vision and voice. Screen understanding and spoken conversation, similar in capability to rivals.

Business grounding. Microsoft 365 Copilot searches your organisation's SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams and email, respecting existing permissions. That is a genuinely different capability from a chatbot, and it is what the higher price buys.

Pricing tiers explained, with rupee figures

Copilot is Free, then Copilot Pro at 20 US dollars a month, roughly Rs 1,700 indicative at Rs 85 to the dollar. Microsoft sells to Indian customers in rupees, and the local price for Copilot Pro has sat in the region of Rs 1,950 a month including tax. Microsoft 365 Copilot for business is sold per user per month at a substantially higher rate, typically around 30 dollars per user per month, roughly Rs 2,550 per user per month indicative, and usually on an annual commitment.

There is an important wrinkle. Microsoft has folded many AI features into standard Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions in India, raising those prices modestly rather than requiring a separate Copilot Pro purchase. Before buying Copilot Pro, check what your existing Microsoft 365 subscription already includes, because you may be about to pay twice for overlapping features.

• Free. Web and Windows assistant, image generation, basic chat. No AI inside the desktop Office apps.
• Copilot Pro, around Rs 1,950 a month. AI features inside desktop Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook for one person, plus priority access to the best models.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot, around Rs 2,550 per user per month indicative. Adds organisational data grounding, Teams meeting intelligence and admin controls. Requires an existing qualifying Microsoft 365 business subscription underneath it.

Indian payment methods work well. Microsoft accepts Indian credit and debit cards, net banking and UPI through its India storefront, with GST included, so you avoid the international mandate problems that affect other AI subscriptions.

How it compares to ChatGPT and Gemini for Workspace

The pattern is clear. If your organisation runs on Microsoft, Copilot. If it runs on Google, Gemini. If you want the most capable general assistant regardless of where your files live, ChatGPT.

Real workflows it fits

A CA firm in Pune gets the most value of any user type. Excel formula generation, reconciliation checks explained in plain English, client email summarisation in Outlook, and on the business tier, searching across years of client correspondence and working papers by describing what they need.

A Bengaluru services company uses Teams meeting summaries and action items on the business tier, which is particularly useful when calls run late with US or European clients and nobody wants to write minutes at 11pm.

A Mumbai finance professional uses Excel Copilot daily for analysis they would otherwise hand to a junior, and Outlook summaries to triage a heavy inbox.

A small manufacturer in Jaipur uses the free Windows assistant for drafting supplier emails and understanding documents, without paying anything.

Students use the free tier for research and drafting, though for study specifically the free ChatGPT or Gemini tiers are generally more useful.

Limitations to know

The biggest complaint from real users is inconsistency. Copilot inside Office sometimes cannot see or do things you would expect it to, refuses tasks the same underlying model performs happily in ChatGPT, and gives shallower answers. Microsoft's guardrails and the plumbing between the app and the model both cost quality.

Excel Copilot works best on well-structured tables. Real Indian office spreadsheets, with merged cells, headers three rows down and notes in random columns, defeat it more often than the marketing suggests.

The naming and licensing are a genuine mess. Working out which Copilot you have, what your Microsoft 365 subscription already covers, and whether you need Pro at all takes real effort.

Business Copilot is expensive at roughly Rs 2,550 per user per month on annual commitment, and requires a qualifying Microsoft 365 licence underneath. For a ten-person Indian firm that is a serious annual line item, and adoption is often poor without training.

Indian language support is adequate in Hindi and thin in regional languages, behind both Gemini and ChatGPT.

Data residency is better here than with most rivals. Microsoft operates Indian data centre regions and business customers can get commitments about where data is stored and processed, plus contractual assurance that organisational data is not used to train models. Consumer tiers do not carry the same guarantees.

How to get started

1. Try the free version first at copilot.microsoft.com, or the Windows taskbar icon if you are on Windows 11.
2. Check what your existing Microsoft 365 subscription already includes before buying anything, because AI features are increasingly bundled.
3. If you are considering Pro, test the Excel and Outlook features specifically. Those are where the value is.
4. Clean up a real spreadsheet into a proper table before testing Excel Copilot, so you judge it fairly.
5. For a business, run a paid pilot with three or four heavy Excel and Outlook users for a month before licensing the whole team.
6. On the business tier, review your SharePoint permissions first. Copilot surfaces whatever a user could already access, which often reveals that permissions were never tidied up.
7. Budget for training. Unused Copilot licences are the most common way Indian firms waste money on this product.