Microsoft is overhauling how it charges for Copilot Cowork, its autonomous AI agent baked into Microsoft 365, moving away from the flat per-user fee structure toward a consumption-based model built around what the company calls Copilot Credits. At the same time, Microsoft is reportedly weighing the introduction of a Microsoft-hosted version of DeepSeek, the Chinese AI lab’s model, as a cheaper alternative to the Anthropic Claude models currently powering the tool.
From flat fees to pay-as-you-go
Copilot Cowork launched in March 2026 as a bundled feature for users already paying for the standard Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on, which runs around $30 per user per month. At launch, there was no extra charge. The tool was designed to handle complex, context-aware tasks across corporate data sources like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Outlook, essentially acting as an autonomous agent that could chain together multi-step workflows without constant human oversight.
The credit-based system is designed to integrate with existing consumption metrics already used in products like Copilot Studio and the new Work IQ API services. For IT departments managing sprawling deployments, this creates a more unified way to track and budget AI spending across Microsoft’s ecosystem.
