Microsoft reports 20M+ paid Copilot users with high engagement
▼ Summary
– Microsoft reported 20 million paid enterprise M365 Copilot seats, with a quadrupling of companies paying for over 50,000 seats, including a deal with Accenture for over 740,000 seats.
– Weekly Copilot engagement now matches Outlook usage, with queries per user up nearly 20% quarter over quarter, according to CEO Satya Nadella.
– Copilot supports multiple AI models by default, including Anthropic’s Claude, and is not dependent on any single model like OpenAI.
– Agent mode, which allows Copilot to take multi-step actions in documents, is now the default experience across Copilot, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
– Morgan Stanley analyst Keith Weiss described the Copilot numbers as “super impressive” and “way ahead of most people’s expectations.”
Despite lingering skepticism that few people actually use Copilot, Microsoft is now reporting significant growth in both its user base and daily engagement for the AI assistant embedded in Microsoft 365 applications like Word, Excel, and Outlook.
During the company’s quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, CEO Satya Nadella announced that M365 Copilot now has 20 million paid enterprise seats. He also highlighted a fourfold increase in the number of organizations purchasing over 50,000 seats. Major clients such as Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Mercedes, and Roche each hold more than 90,000 seats. Nadella specifically pointed to the recently announced agreement with Accenture, which accounts for over 740,000 seats , calling it “our largest Copilot win to date.”
Nadella pushed back on the notion that the tool is underused, claiming that engagement levels now rival those of email. “Copilot queries per user were up nearly 20% quarter over quarter,” he said. “To put this momentum in perspective, weekly engagement is now at the same level as Outlook. This is like a daily habit of intense usage.”
He also clarified that Copilot is not tied exclusively to any single AI model, including OpenAI. “You now have access in chat to multiple models by default, with intelligent auto routing in agents with critique and counsel,” Nadella explained. “You can use multiple models together to generate optimal responses.” For example, Microsoft 365 now supports Anthropic’s Claude.
Morgan Stanley’s Keith Weiss commented on the earnings call that “those Microsoft 365 Copilot numbers are super impressive and I think way ahead of most people’s expectations.”
A major driver of this increased usage is the agent mode feature, which Nadella described as “the default experience across Copilot and Word, Excel, and PowerPoint” as of last week. Microsoft recently made these agentic capabilities generally available, enabling Copilot to perform multi-step actions directly within documents. “You now have a new way to delegate and complete work using Copilot,” Nadella added.
(Source: TechCrunch)
