How much do you use the Copilot features on Microsoft 365? If your answer to that is "not a lot," then there's some bad news on the horizon. Your monthly bill for using the service is about to go up, and it's likely due to the addition of AI services across the platform. Worst of all, you can't opt out of this price rise, either; everyone is getting hit by it regardless of how much they use (or want) Copilot.

Microsoft 365 users will pay extra for Copilot additions

In a post on the Microsoft 365 blog, the company celebrates the addition of Copilot to its productivity suite. Beforehand, you needed to add a Copilot Pro subscription to unlock it, but now it's part of the suite by default.

So, this means everyone's getting Copilot for free, right? Well, not so fast. As it turns out, everyone is now paying for it, regardless of if they use it or not:

To reflect the extensive subscription benefits that we’ve added over the past 12 years and enable us to deliver new innovations for years to come, we’re increasing the prices of Microsoft 365 Personal and Family in the US for the first time since its release by $3 USD per month. Existing subscribers won’t experience the price increase until their next renewal.

It's hard to tell how this will affect Microsoft 365's subscriber count. Will people end up canceling over the price hike, or is it small enough for people to accept and move on from? And if people quit, will the additional $3 per month from subscribers cover the hole? Regardless, if this news has put you off using the suite, be sure to check out these Microsoft Office alternatives for something new.