Microsoft has combined Copilot AI capabilities with productivity apps and cloud storage in a new subscription tier called 365 Premium that is priced for individual users at $20 per month. The move comes 18 months after Copilot Pro subscriptions debuted for $20 monthly. The new product merges the AI power of Copilot Pro with the Microsoft Office suite for a low price. Upping the ante further, Microsoft is bringing “vibe working” to Microsoft 365 Copilot with the introduction of Agent Mode in Office apps and Office Agent in Copilot chat. Media outlets suggest 365 Premium will allow Microsoft to better compete against OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which does not have its own dedicated productivity tools.

Bloomberg points out that Microsoft 365 Family, which retails for $13 per month for up to six users, provides access to Word, Outlook, Excel. Bundled into Premium it includes 6 terabytes of cloud storage as well as early access to those “vibe working” features.

Microsoft 365 Premium is priced the same as OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus subscription, “and will include Microsoft’s highest usage limits in features like GPT-4o image generation and voice, as well as Copilot Podcasts, Deep Research, Vision, and Actions,” writes The Verge.

“We created this subscription really for any solopreneur, professional, or high achiever looking to tackle the most demanding productivity tasks with AI at their side,” Microsoft’s Gareth Oystryk, senior director of marketing for Copilot Pro and Microsoft 365, says in an interview with The Verge.

Office Agent and Agent Mode will “transform a single prompt into expert-quality documents, spreadsheets, and presentations,” Microsoft explains in a 365 Premium blog post.

“Agent Mode in Copilot for Word is available via the Frontier program for Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed customers and Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, and Premium subscribers,” according to a blog post introducing the new agents. Agent Mode works in Word on the web, with desktop coming soon.

Office Agent is also accessible through Frontier for Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, and Premium subscribers based in the United States and works in Microsoft 365 Copilot on the web in English. An Agent Mode in Excel post and Office Agent post offer further details.

Microsoft Office Group Corporate VP Sumit Chauhan says the agents make the apps more accessible, reports SiliconANGLE. Using Excel as an example, she says the agents can empower “almost every user with the ability to ‘evaluate results, fix issues and repeat the processes until the outcome is verified,’ simply by telling it what to do in natural language,” concluding “it’s like handing off work to an Excel expert.”

“Microsoft reported 89 million consumer subscribers for Microsoft 365 services in the June quarter, up 8 percent,” reports CNBC.