Microsoft adds higher-priced Office tier with Copilot as it tries to juice sales with AI

Group 1 - Microsoft is increasing the price of its Office productivity suite by 65% to attract enterprise users to its Copilot AI add-on, with the new Microsoft 365 E7 costing $99 per user per month compared to the previous $60 for the E5 subscription [1] - The company has invested over $100 billion in data center infrastructure in the past year, including Nvidia chips for AI models, indicating a strategy to monetize its AI offerings [2] - Microsoft is launching Copilot Cowork, a new feature developed in partnership with Anthropic, which will automate multi-step tasks like scheduling emails and preparing for meetings, available as a research preview this month [3] Group 2 - The introduction of the E7 tier and Copilot upgrades is expected to drive further adoption of Copilot, as stated by the CEO of Microsoft's commercial business, who also noted that the E7 tier may encourage organizations to upgrade more employees to E5 [4] - The current majority of Microsoft's customer base is on the E5 plan, which was established before the rise of AI-driven solutions, and the company is experiencing healthy renewal cycles for E5 subscriptions [5]