It’s one of the questions we’re being asked most often this year:
“We keep hearing about Copilot. Is it actually worth it for a business our size, or is it just hype?”
The answer depends on how your team works. It can save a significant amount of time for the right people, but that doesn’t mean everyone in the business needs it.
Before deciding whether Copilot is worth paying for, it helps to understand that there are different versions available. For most small businesses, there are two you really need to know about.
The two versions that matter to most small businesses
Microsoft Copilot Chat is included at no additional cost with eligible Microsoft 365 business subscriptions.
It can help you research a subject, explain a concept, draft content, summarise an uploaded document or suggest a structure for a report.
Unlike the paid version of Copilot, it doesn’t automatically search across all of the information held within your business. But it can work with information you give it, such as text you paste into the conversation, a document you upload or content you already have open in a Microsoft 365 application.
When used within Outlook, it can also help with information from your inbox, calendar and meetings. For example, you can ask it to summarise recent emails about a customer, find your next meeting with someone or help draft a reply based on information already in your inbox.
For many businesses, it’s a good place to start.
Microsoft 365 Copilot is the paid option.
It goes further by working with the information your business already holds in Microsoft 365, including files, emails, chats and meetings, while respecting the permissions each person already has in place. It also works more closely with apps such as Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams and PowerPoint.
Since July 2026, Microsoft 365 Copilot has also been available as part of some Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Business Premium packages, rather than only as a separate add-on.
Depending on the Microsoft 365 plan you already have, one option may offer better value than another, so it’s worth checking before adding any new licences.
For most businesses, though, Copilot Chat is the sensible place to start. If that proves useful and you can see where deeper access to your business information could save more time, that’s when it’s worth considering the paid option.
Who gets the most from it?
For the right roles, Microsoft 365 Copilot can save a lot of time. Which roles those are varies from business to business, but the pattern is fairly consistent.
- Owners and managers drowning in email can save time summarising threads, drafting replies and catching up on meetings.
- Sales and account-facing staff can prepare customer briefings using relevant emails, documents and meeting history.
- Finance and operations teams working with structured information can speed up analysis and reporting in Excel.
- Anyone who creates a lot of documents can get a strong first draft of a proposal, report, presentation or specification to edit instead of starting from a blank page.
Microsoft 365 Copilot tends to provide less value in roles that are primarily hands-on, such as engineers working on site, workshop staff or anyone whose day centres on physical work. Whilst it may still help when they’re completing paperwork or communicating with customers, it’s less likely to transform their working day.
Microsoft 365 Copilot doesn’t need to be worthwhile for everybody. It needs to save enough time for each licensed user to earn its place.
Why your SharePoint matters
Microsoft 365 Copilot is only as useful as the information it can access.
If your SharePoint environment is well organised, with current documents, clear ownership and the right permissions in place, Copilot can help people find and use that information much more effectively.
If SharePoint has become more of a digital filing cabinet, with outdated documents sitting alongside current ones, duplicate files and unclear ownership, Copilot may surface information that is no longer useful or relevant.
Copilot also works with the permissions you already have in Microsoft 365. It doesn’t bypass your security, but if someone already has access to information they shouldn’t, Copilot can make that information easier to find.
That’s why it’s worth getting the basics right first – making sure SharePoint is well organised, outdated information is removed or archived and people only have access to what they need.
It’s worth doing regardless of whether you go ahead with Copilot. A tidy SharePoint environment makes life easier for everyone.
One question we get every time we discuss Copilot is where all of this information actually ends up.
That one needs a blog of its own, so we’ll come back to it later this year: Where does your data go when your team uses Copilot?
How to test Microsoft 365 Copilot without rolling it out to everybody
You don’t have to make one company-wide decision about Microsoft 365 Copilot.
We’d suggest the following:
- Start with Copilot Chat.
Check whether it’s already included in your Microsoft 365 subscription and make sure your team understands what it can do and how to use it securely.
- Identify who could benefit most.
Look for the people who spend the most time dealing with emails, meetings, customer information, reports and documents.
- Check your Microsoft 365 environment is ready.
Review the SharePoint sites, Teams content and document libraries those people use. Make sure information is current, well organised and only accessible to the right people.
- Start with a few carefully chosen users.
Choose two or three people who have a clear reason to use Copilot rather than giving licences to everyone.
- Measure whether it’s making a difference.
Look at practical things such as time saved preparing for meetings, dealing with emails, producing proposals or creating reports.
- Review before you expand.
If Copilot is genuinely saving someone time, keep it. If it isn’t making enough of a difference, don’t keep paying for a licence they don’t need.
Before starting, we’ll also explain the available commitment and billing options and help you choose the right number of licences.
Where an annual commitment applies, we’d recommend starting small rather than licensing the whole business.
That way, you end up with an answer based on your business, not on Microsoft’s marketing.
The same applies to any AI tool
Whilst Copilot is the one we get asked about most, everything above applies just as much to any other AI tool you are thinking of putting in front of your team. Work out who would actually benefit, tidy up the information it will rely on, start with a few people and check whether it made a difference before you buy any more.
Where Copilot has the advantage is what happens to your information. Used through a business account, your prompts and documents stay inside Microsoft’s business service boundary and are not used to train public AI models. Whichever AI tools your team uses, it’s also important to think about how business information is being handled. Using approved business tools gives you more control than employees choosing their own free AI tools online.
So, is Copilot worth it?
For most small and growing businesses, we’d recommend starting with Copilot Chat if it’s already included in your Microsoft 365 subscription.
Use it properly, see where it saves time and identify the people who could benefit from going further.
For those people, Microsoft 365 Copilot could be a worthwhile investment. But we wouldn’t recommend rolling it out to everybody on day one. For some roles it simply won’t earn its place.
The important thing is that you’re paying for Copilot where it genuinely helps, not just adding another licence to the bill.
Not sure whether Copilot is worth it for your business? We’ll help you work out who could genuinely benefit, what you may already have included in Microsoft 365 and whether you’re ready to make the most of it.
Whatever your IT question – big or small – drop us a message or give us a call. We’ll make sure you get a straightforward answer without the tech-speak.