Microsoft rebuilds Copilot around an agent that works on its own

An owner sets each agent’s job and target. The agent then keeps its own memory and log-in inside the company’s Microsoft 365, and colleagues can tag it in a Teams thread or an email to hand it work. It can follow up on open items and take on jobs that repeat.

Autopilot is in an expanding private preview from the end of September. Microsoft is giving Home and Code to its Frontier early-access customers first.

Pricing moves with it. The enterprise Copilot seat stays at $30 per user per month, billed annually. Cowork, Code and Autopilot also use Copilot Credits, at $0.01 each on pay-as-you-go, VentureBeat reports. Microsoft’s earlier Cowork estimates price a light task at $0.70 to $2 and a heavy one at more than $15.

“Every agent has to have an identity,” chief executive Satya Nadella said in a 23 September presentation, VentureBeat reports. Fortune describes the new Copilot as a super app aimed at business users.

For teams that budget AI by the seat, this is the real change. Copilot’s cost now rises with the work its agents do, on the credit model many AI video and ad tools already use.