Microsoft starts selling its Copilot AI tool for email and documents

Published

2 years ago

November 1, 2023

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Microsoft is primed to enjoy its next cycle of growth. On Wednesday, the company started selling the Microsoft 365 Copilot artificial intelligence add-on for its Office app subscriptions targeting businesses.

The feature that appears in Word, Excel and other Office programs will cost $30 per person per month. That can add up to over $10 billion in annualized revenue by 2026, Piper Sandler analysts Brent Bracelin and Hannah Rudoff wrote in a note to clients earlier this week.

Microsoft aims to make the most of its commanding lead in the productivity software market, where Google has been working to gain share. Google, meanwhile, is selling the Duet AI enhancement for subscriptions to its Workspace tools.

Piper Sandler’s model assumes that 18% of eligible users will use Copilot. That might be aggressive, but “there’s going to be a FOMO element to this,” Bracelin told CNBC in an interview on Tuesday, using the acronym for fear of missing out. “If you’re in an industry competing against someone that has Copilot and you don’t, you’re at a disadvantage.”

Piper Sandler has the equivalent of a buy rating on Microsoft shares, which are up 41% this year, compared with a gain of 9% for the S&P 500 index, of which it’s included.

“Customers tell us that once they use Copilot, they can’t imagine work without it,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told analysts on a conference call last week.

After revealing plans for Copilot in March, Microsoft announced in September that it would first target the largest companies. On last week’s call, Nadella said 40% of the companies in the Fortune 100, a ranking of U.S. companies by revenue, were using Copilot in an invitation-only paid early-access program announced in May, calling out five clients by name: Bayer, KPMG, Mayo Clinic, Suncorp and Visa.

The preview was announced in May, less than six months ago. As a result, there isn’t a wealth of data on how Copilot affects performance.

“A lot of the conversations we’ve had even with the early-access customers is too short a timeframe to really look at the qualitative aspects of how they’re using the tools,” said Jason Wong, an analyst at technology industry researcher Gartner.

Companies need at least 300 licenses for employees to get access to Copilot. The challenge for Microsoft is to go beyond a small core of end users and land a wide deployment. That could take time.

Wong said Gartner encourages organizations to experiment with generative AI, which can create synthetic images and text with just a few words of human input.

“I think getting to 20% will be reasonable within two to three years for technologies like Copilot, because there’s going to be early adopters, and there’s going to be fast followers,” he said.

It might be easiest for companies to distribute Copilot to the mostly highly paid executives, whose time is precious, said Piper Sandler’s Bracelin. The tool could help them prioritize email messages and quickly understand documents.

But the top brass might end up causing headaches for tech support, Wong said. It might be wiser to first give Copilot to technically savvy employees who have drawn on generative AI for personal use and are familiar with shortcomings such as the potential to spout inaccurate information, Wong said. Microsoft acknowledges on its website that “the responses that generative AI produces aren’t guaranteed to be 100% factual.”

That hasn’t discouraged people from using ChatGPT, the chatbot from Microsoft-backed OpenAI whose language models are at the core of Copilot. After ChatGPT launched in November 2022, Microsoft and other large software companies moved quickly to incorporate similar generative features. Microsoft says prompts and responses in Copilot aren’t used to train language models and adhere to the company’s privacy standards.

Microsoft won’t only benefit from the new monthly Copilot fees. While setting up the tool, companies might end up using additional Azure cloud services, such as Purview for managing data, Wong said.

WATCH: Microsoft will have a short-term breakout if it holds current levels, says Fairlead’s Katie Stockton

Technology

OpenAI temporarily blocked from using ‘Cameo’ after trademark lawsuit

Published

53 mins ago

November 24, 2025

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OpenAI temporarily blocked from using 'Cameo' after trademark lawsuit

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

OpenAI will not be allowed use the word “cameo” to name any products or features in its Sora app for a month after a federal judge placed a temporary restraining order for the term on the AI startup.

U.S. District Judge Eumi K. Lee granted a temporary restraining order on Monday, blocking OpenAI from using the “cameo” mark or similar words like “Kameo” or “CameoVideo” for any function related to Sora, the company’s AI-generated video app.

“We disagree with the complaint’s assertion that anyone can claim exclusive ownership over the word ‘cameo’, and we look forward to continuing to make our case to the court,” an OpenAI spokesperson told CNBC.

Lee granted the order after OpenAI was sued in October by Cameo, a platform that allows users to purchase personalized videos from celebrities. Cameo filed a trademark lawsuit against the artificial intelligence company following the launch of Sora’s “Cameo” feature, which allowed users to generate characters of themselves or others and insert them into videos.

“We are gratified by the court’s decision, which recognizes the need to protect consumers from the confusion that OpenAI has created by using the Cameo trademark,” Cameo CEO Steven Galanis said in a statement. “While the court’s order is temporary, we hope that OpenAI will agree to stop using our mark permanently to avoid any further harm to the public or Cameo.”

The order is set to expire on Dec. 22, and a hearing for whether the halt should be made permanent is scheduled for Dec. 19.

Cameo CEO on OpenAI lawsuit: Problem is using our name, not Sora AI

Technology

OpenAI announces shopping research tool in latest e-commerce push

Published

1 hour ago

November 24, 2025

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OpenAI announces shopping research tool in latest e-commerce push

Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI Inc., during a media tour of the Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Texas, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025.

Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images

OpenAI announced a new tool called “shopping research” on Monday, right as consumers will be ramping up spending ahead of the holiday season.

The startup said the tool is designed for ChatGPT users who are looking for detailed, well-researched shopping guides. The guides include top products, key differences between the products and the latest information from retailers, according to a blog.

Users will be able to tailor their guides based on their budget, what features they care about and who they are shopping for. OpenAI said it will take a couple of minutes to generate answers with shopping research, so users who are looking for simple answers like a price check can still rely on a regular ChatGPT response.

When users submit prompts to ChatGPT that say things like, “Find the quietest cordless stick vacuum for a small apartment,” or “I need a gift for my four year old niece who loves art,” they will see the shopping research tool pop up automatically, OpenAI said. The tool can also be accessed from the menu.

OpenAI has been pushing deeper into e-commerce in recent months. The company introduced a feature called Instant Checkout in September that allows users to make purchases directly from eligible merchants through ChatGPT.

Shopping research users will be able to make purchases with Instant Checkout in the future, OpenAI said on Monday.

OpenAI said its shopping research results are organic and based on publicly available retail websites, and that it will not share users’ chats with retailers. It’s possible that shopping research will make mistakes around product availability and pricing, the company said.

Shopping research is rolling out to OpenAI’s Free, Go, Plus and Pro users who are logged in to ChatGPT.

WATCH: OpenAI taps Foxconn to build AI hardware in the U.S.

Technology

Tesla fans told by Dutch safety regulator to stop pressuring agency on ‘FSD Supervised’

Published

1 hour ago

November 24, 2025

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Tesla fans told by Dutch safety regulator to stop pressuring agency on 'FSD Supervised'

A Tesla logo outside the company’s Tilburg Factory and Delivery Center.

Karol Serewis | Getty Images

Tesla is trying to get its “FSD Supervised” technology approved for use in the Netherlands. But Dutch regulators are telling Tesla fans to stop pressuring safety authority RDW on the matter, and that their efforts will have “no influence” on the ultimate decision.

The RDW issued a statement on Monday directed at those who have been sending messages to try and get the agency to clear Tesla’s premium partially automated driving system, marketed in the U.S. as the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) option. It’s not yet available for use in the Netherlands or Europe broadly.

“We thank everyone who has already done so and would like to ask everyone not to contact us about this,” the agency said. “It takes up unnecessary time for our customer service. Moreover, this will have no influence on whether or not the planning is met. Road safety is the RDW’s top priority: admission is only possible once the safety of the system has been convincingly demonstrated.”

The regulator said it will make a decision only after Elon Musk’s company shows that the technology meets the country’s stringent vehicle safety standards. The RDW has booked a schedule allowing Tesla to demonstrate its systems, and said it could decide on authorization as early as February.

Last week, Tesla posted on X encouraging its followers to contact RDW to express their wishes to have the systems approved.

The post claimed, “RDW has committed to granting Netherlands National approval in February 2026,” adding a message to “please contact them via link below to express your excitement & thank them for making this happen as soon as possible.” Tesla said other EU countries could then follow suit.

The RDW corrected Tesla on Monday, saying in a statement on its official website, that such approval is not guaranteed and had not been promised.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the U.S., the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into Tesla’s FSD-equipped vehicles in October following reports of widespread traffic violations tied to use of the systems.

The cars Tesla sells today, even with FSD Supervised engaged, require a human driver ready to brake or steer at any time.

For years, Musk has promised that Tesla customers would soon be able to turn their existing electric vehicles into robotaxis, capable of generating income for owners while they sleep or go on vacation, with a simple software update.

That hasn’t happened yet, and Tesla has since informed owners that future upgrades will require new hardware as well as software releases.

Tesla is testing a Robotaxi-brand ride-hailing service in Texas and elsewhere, but it includes human safety drivers or supervisors on board who either conduct the drives or manually intervene as needed. Musk has said the company aims to remove human driers in Austin, Texas, by the end of 2025.

WATCH: Tesla bear on company’s EV business