Understand the Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription

There are different versions of Microsoft Copilot, including a free version that anybody can use at the website copilot.microsoft.com. But the version that we are covering in this workshop is Microsoft 365 Copilot. This is a set of AI tools designed to help people in the workplace. Microsoft 365 Copilot is not free. It is a subscription that must be purchased by your organization. First, you must have an existing Microsoft 365 account with a business, school, or similar organization. Generally, this means that your employer or school has assigned a Microsoft account to you and your co-workers, which you use for Microsoft services and applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. You can see a list of the specific Microsoft 365 licenses that are eligible here on this website. If you are a member of one of these organizations, then your Microsoft administrator can also purchase the license from Microsoft 365 Copilot for you and your coworkers. So if you and your coworkers don't have the Microsoft 365 Copilot features, or if you don't know whether you have them, you should talk to your administrator to see if they can add that license. This Microsoft administrator is usually somebody in the IT department at your company or school. So the tools that we will see in this workshop are only for people in an organization. However, if you are an individual not associated with an organization like this, you may want to look into Copilot Pro. That is a separate subscription for individual users, which will also enable AI tools inside of Office applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, but for an individual account. Of course, we're not covering Copilot Pro in this workshop, but for more information and context about Copilot Pro and other Copilot products, I encourage you to watch my other workshop called What is Copilot? Get Started with Microsoft's Everyday AI Companion. And if you do have a Microsoft 365 account with the Microsoft 365 Copilot license, make sure you're ready to sign into that account as we go through the rest of this workshop.