Microsoft Copilot agents are AI helpers inside Microsoft 365 that research, analyse data, run meetings and carry out tasks for you, and in the UK the basic Copilot Chat is free with an eligible business Microsoft 365 plan. The full Microsoft 365 Copilot Business licence, which adds Copilot in Teams, Outlook and Office plus Microsoft's ready-made agents, costs £16.10 a user a month billed yearly or £19.32 monthly, excluding VAT. Custom agents built in Copilot Studio are charged in Copilot Credits, at £153.80 for 25,000 a month or $0.01 each pay-as-you-go. This guide explains what each option does, what it costs and how a small business should start.
Key facts
- Free: Copilot Chat, for Microsoft Entra users with an eligible Microsoft 365 subscription; agents your organisation builds are billed on a metered basis.
- Copilot Business (up to 300 users): £16.10 a user a month billed yearly, £13.80 under a first-year offer to 31 December 2026, or £19.32 monthly, excluding VAT.
- Enterprise: Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on, £23.10 a user a month billed yearly, excluding VAT.
- Ready-made agents: Researcher, Analyst and Facilitator come with a Copilot licence, as of 26 October 2026.
- Copilot Studio: £153.80 a month per pack of 25,000 Copilot Credits, or $0.01 a credit pay-as-you-go through Azure.
- UK data: Copilot data follows Microsoft 365 storage commitments; UK local processing for Microsoft 365 Copilot is expected by the end of 2026.
On this page
- What are Microsoft Copilot agents?
- Copilot Chat or a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence?
- The agents in Copilot: Researcher, Analyst and the rest
- Copilot Studio and Copilot Credits
- What Copilot costs in the UK
- UK data residency and privacy
- How to start with Copilot agents in a small business
- Frequently asked questions
- Sources
What are Microsoft Copilot agents?
An agent in Microsoft's language is a version of Copilot set up for one job, with its own instructions, knowledge and permission to take actions. Some are built by Microsoft, such as Researcher for in-depth research and Analyst for data. Others are built by your organisation in Agent Builder or Copilot Studio, or bought from partners through the Microsoft Agent Store. Microsoft's newest agents, Copilot Cowork and Copilot Autopilot, keep working on tasks in the background and are billed on usage.
If you are new to the idea, my explainer on what an AI agent is covers the basics. The short version: a chatbot answers, an agent acts. That is useful, and it is also why permissions and spending limits matter more with agents.
Copilot Chat or a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence?
Microsoft sells two tiers to organisations. Copilot Chat is included at no extra cost for Microsoft Entra account users with an eligible Microsoft 365 subscription. A Microsoft 365 Copilot licence is a paid add-on per user. Here is what Microsoft's UK pricing pages and FAQ say each includes, as of 26 October 2026.
| Feature | Copilot Chat (free) | Microsoft 365 Copilot licence |
|---|---|---|
| AI chat grounded in the web | Yes | Yes |
| Grounded in your work email, files and meetings (Work IQ) | No | Yes |
| Copilot in Outlook and the Microsoft Copilot app | Yes | Yes, with priority access |
| Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams | Select apps only; Teams chat answers from web data | Yes |
| Researcher, Analyst and Facilitator agents | No | Yes |
| Custom agents built by your organisation | Yes, billed on a metered basis | Assistive agents at no extra cost |
| Copilot Cowork and Autopilot | Not listed | Yes, usage-based |
| Enterprise data protection | Yes | Yes |
The jump that matters is Work IQ, Microsoft's name for grounding answers in your own email, calendar, chats and files. Without it, Copilot cannot summarise your inbox or prepare you for a meeting from last week's thread. Microsoft also says an Azure subscription is required for Copilot Chat users to use agents, because those agents are metered.
The agents in Copilot: Researcher, Analyst and the rest
Microsoft's UK pricing page lists "pre-built Microsoft agents, including Researcher, Analyst, and Facilitator" with a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence. Microsoft Support and Microsoft Learn describe these and several smaller ones.
| Agent | What it does | Who gets it |
|---|---|---|
| Researcher | In-depth research across the web and your work data, with citations | Copilot licence holders; also Microsoft 365 Premium for personal users |
| Analyst | Turns raw data into insights, forecasts and charts | Copilot licence holders |
| Facilitator | Real-time AI notes in Teams meetings, answers questions in chat, tracks the agenda | Copilot licence holders |
| Writing Coach, Prompt Coach, Idea Coach | Feedback on writing, better prompts, brainstorming | Added from All agents in the Copilot app |
| Sales, Service and Finance agents | Role agents connected to business systems | Listed with Copilot licences |
| Copilot Cowork and Autopilot | Agents that carry out longer tasks across Microsoft 365 | Copilot licence, billed on usage |
Microsoft Learn says Researcher and Analyst operate inside the Microsoft 365 commercial data boundary and inherit the same security and compliance commitments as the rest of Microsoft 365. Users find them in the Copilot app under Agents or Tools.
For meetings specifically, Facilitator and Copilot in Teams need the paid licence. If meeting notes are all you want, Teams Premium at £7.70 a user a month adds intelligent recap more cheaply. My comparison of the best AI meeting assistants in the UK sets that against Gemini, Zoom and the standalone notetakers.
Copilot Studio and Copilot Credits
Copilot Studio is Microsoft's tool for building your own agents, from a staff helpdesk bot to an agent that answers customers on your website. Agent Builder, inside the Copilot app, covers simpler agents. Building on the standard harness costs nothing, because Microsoft starts billing it only after you publish; running agents uses Copilot Credits. The newer GitHub Copilot harness charges credits from the moment you start building, including previews and tests.
Microsoft's UK Copilot Studio page sets out three ways to pay, as of 26 October 2026:
- Capacity packs: a tenant-wide licence with packs of 25,000 Copilot Credits at £153.80 a pack a month, excluding VAT. That works out at about 0.6p a credit. The US price is $200 a pack.
- Pay-as-you-go: no commitment, billed monthly through an Azure subscription for the credits you use. Microsoft's Azure pricing page lists $0.01 a Copilot Credit, about 0.75p.
- Pre-purchase plan: prepaid Copilot Credit Commit Units, which Microsoft says save up to 20%, with pay-as-you-go cover when they run out.
Microsoft says the number of credits an agent uses varies with what it does, its knowledge sources and the complexity of the answer or action. My Copilot Studio UK guide lists the credit rates and what they cost in pounds. Microsoft used to call the unit "messages", and some Learn pages still describe the meter as $0.01 a message. Microsoft 365 Copilot licence holders can use assistive custom agents at no extra cost, but autonomous agents and agents on external channels such as your website draw on credits.
The practical risk is an unpredictable bill. Set a Copilot Credits spending policy before anyone publishes an agent, watch usage in the Power Platform admin centre, and start with pay-as-you-go until you know your usage. My guide to what AI agents cost in the UK compares this model with flat-fee tools.
What Copilot costs in the UK
These are Microsoft's UK prices per user a month, excluding VAT, as shown on 26 October 2026. Add 20% VAT if you cannot reclaim it.
| Plan | Paid yearly | Paid monthly | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copilot Chat | £0 | £0 | With an eligible Microsoft 365 plan |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot Business (add-on) | £16.10 (£13.80 offer) | £19.32 | Up to 300 users; offer for the first year, to 31 December 2026 |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot | £18.10 | £21.72 | Office apps, Teams, email and Copilot |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium with Copilot | £24.60 | £29.52 | As above, plus advanced security |
| Business Standard with Copilot (no Teams) | £15.60 | £18.72 | For firms that buy Teams separately |
| Business Premium with Copilot (no Teams) | £22.10 | £26.52 | As above |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot (enterprise add-on) | £23.10 | Monthly billing also offered | For enterprise plans |
| Agent 365 | £11.50 | Yearly price only shown | Optional governance and security for agents |
| Copilot Studio credits | £153.80 per 25,000 a month | $0.01 a credit pay-as-you-go | Shared across the tenant |
A worked example: a ten-person firm on Microsoft 365 that adds Copilot Business for everyone on the yearly plan pays 10 x £16.10 = £161 a month before VAT, or £138 a month under the first-year offer. Paying monthly costs £193.20 before VAT. Agents built in Copilot Studio come on top, but only if you build and run them.
Agent 365, at £11.50 a user a month, is Microsoft's control plane for observing, governing and securing agents; it is included in Microsoft 365 E7 at £81.60. Most small businesses will not need it at the start. For personal users, Microsoft 365 Personal costs £8.49 a month and Premium £18.99, and Microsoft Support says Researcher is available to Premium subscribers.
UK data residency and privacy
Microsoft says prompts, responses and data accessed through Microsoft Graph are not used to train foundation models, and are processed and stored in line with your organisation's existing Microsoft 365 commitments. Its data residency documentation lists no changes to the standard storage commitments for Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat, and adds an explicit commitment to store Copilot Cowork prompts and responses in the UK for tenants whose default location is the UK.
Processing is a different question. Microsoft announced in November 2025 that UK customers would get in-country processing for Microsoft 365 Copilot interactions. An editor's note dated 3 April 2026 says Microsoft is refining the timeline and scope, and that local data inferencing for Microsoft 365 Copilot is expected in the UK by the end of 2026. Until then, the AI processing step may happen outside the UK.
One more detail matters for UK firms. Microsoft Learn says Anthropic models offered inside Copilot and Copilot Studio are excluded from in-country processing commitments, and are switched off by default for customers in the UK and the EU Data Boundary. If an admin turns them on, that data leaves those commitments. My guide to AI agents and UK GDPR covers DPIAs and processor terms if you need to document this.
How to start with Copilot agents in a small business
Start free, prove one job, then pay for the people who use it most. This order keeps cost and risk low.
- Turn on Copilot Chat for everyone. It costs nothing on an eligible plan and gives staff a safer alternative to personal chatbots, with enterprise data protection.
- Tidy your sharing before buying licences. Copilot answers from anything a user can open. Check SharePoint and OneDrive sites that are shared with everyone.
- License two or three people monthly. At £19.32 each, a one-month trial of Copilot Business is cheaper than committing everyone for a year. Pick the heaviest email and meeting users.
- Give each a single job. A morning inbox summary, meeting recaps, or a Researcher report each week. Measure the time saved.
- Set a credits policy before any custom agent. Start Copilot Studio on pay-as-you-go, check usage weekly, and require approval before an agent goes live.
- Write down the data decisions. Note where data is processed, keep Anthropic models off unless you have checked the terms, and record a DPIA for anything sensitive.
- Then switch to yearly billing for the people who use it, ideally before the £13.80 offer ends on 31 December 2026.
If you are weighing Microsoft against other options, my guide to AI for small business in the UK compares Copilot with Google Workspace and standalone tools, job by job.
Frequently asked questions
Is Microsoft Copilot free for businesses in the UK?
Copilot Chat is free for Microsoft Entra users with an eligible Microsoft 365 subscription. It gives web-grounded AI chat, Copilot in Outlook and select apps, and metered use of agents your organisation builds. Grounding in your own email and files, Copilot in Teams and Microsoft's ready-made agents need a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licence.
How much is Microsoft 365 Copilot in the UK?
As of 26 October 2026, Microsoft 365 Copilot Business costs £16.10 a user a month billed yearly, £13.80 under a first-year offer to 31 December 2026, or £19.32 billed monthly. The enterprise add-on costs £23.10 a user a month billed yearly. All prices exclude VAT.
What are Researcher and Analyst in Copilot?
They are agents built by Microsoft. Researcher does in-depth research across the web and your work data with citations. Analyst turns raw data into insights, forecasts and charts. Both come with a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, and Researcher is also available to Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers.
How much does Copilot Studio cost?
Copilot Studio is billed in Copilot Credits. In the UK a pack of 25,000 credits costs £153.80 a month excluding VAT. Pay-as-you-go through an Azure subscription costs $0.01 a credit, about 0.75p. A pre-purchase plan saves up to 20%. The number of credits each action uses varies.
What is the difference between Copilot Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot?
Copilot Chat is the free tier, grounded in the web. Microsoft 365 Copilot is the paid licence that adds Work IQ, which grounds answers in your email, calendar and files, plus Copilot in Teams and the Office apps, and agents such as Researcher, Analyst and Facilitator.
Does Microsoft 365 Copilot keep data in the UK?
Copilot data is stored under Microsoft 365's existing commitments, and Copilot Cowork interactions are stored in the UK for UK tenants. Local processing of Microsoft 365 Copilot interactions in the UK is expected by the end of 2026. Microsoft says it does not use your prompts and responses to train foundation models.
Do I need Agent 365?
Probably not at first. Agent 365 costs £11.50 a user a month billed yearly and adds governance, monitoring and security for AI agents. It suits organisations running many agents. A small business starting with Copilot Chat and a few licences can manage agents in the existing admin centres.
Read next
- Microsoft Copilot Autopilot: what it is, UK price and how to get access
- Microsoft Agent Store review
- Best AI meeting assistants in the UK
- What AI agents cost in the UK
Sources
- Microsoft UK, Copilot pricing for business - checked 26 October 2026
- Microsoft UK, Copilot plans for enterprise and FAQ - checked 26 October 2026
- Microsoft UK, Copilot Studio plans and pricing - checked 26 October 2026
- Microsoft Azure, Copilot Studio pay-as-you-go pricing - checked 26 October 2026
- Microsoft UK, Agent 365 - checked 26 October 2026
- Microsoft Support, Agents built by Microsoft - checked 26 October 2026
- Microsoft Support, Get started with Researcher - checked 26 October 2026
- Microsoft Support, FAQ about agents in Microsoft Teams (Facilitator) - checked 26 October 2026
- Microsoft Learn, Manage agents in the Microsoft 365 admin center - checked 26 October 2026
- Microsoft Learn, Data, privacy and security for Microsoft Copilot - checked 26 October 2026
- Microsoft Learn, Data residency for Microsoft 365 Copilot - updated 8 October 2026, checked 26 October 2026
- Microsoft Copilot Blog, In-country data processing for Microsoft 365 Copilot - 4 November 2025, editor's note 3 April 2026
- Microsoft Learn, Anthropic models in Microsoft Online Services - checked 26 October 2026
- Microsoft UK, Microsoft 365 plans for home - checked 25 October 2026
- Microsoft UK, Teams Premium - checked 26 October 2026
