Microsoft Launches Copilot Cowork With Pay-As-You-Go Pricing

On June 16, 2026, Microsoft announced the general availability of Copilot Cowork for Microsoft 365 Copilot users worldwide. The agentic AI tool independently performs complex office tasks, such as batch-editing spreadsheets, drafting documents, and evaluating sales opportunities. During its Frontier preview, the service was adopted by more than half of the Fortune 500 companies, including Zurich Insurance, Koch, and Accenture.

To address the high computing costs of autonomous agents, Microsoft introduced a pay-as-you-go billing model using Copilot Credits, priced at $0.01 per credit. This marks the company's first departure from fixed subscription fees for office software in twenty years. While users must maintain a Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription, the agent service is disabled by default, and organizations can set spending caps to manage costs. The platform currently utilizes Anthropic models Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 4.6, with GPT 5.5 available for Frontier users and a proprietary Cowork 1 model expected soon.

To expand functionality and security, Microsoft introduced nine partner plugins from companies such as Miro and monday.com. Simultaneously, Aembit unveiled an integration for Copilot Studio at the Identiverse 2026 conference. This integration allows security teams to manage agent access through ephemeral credentials and blended identities, removing the need for static credentials and ensuring all access decisions are logged for compliance.