Microsoft's new Copilot adds an always-on agent called Autopilot

Microsoft announced a new version of Copilot on 25 September. It adds a single Home screen, a way to build small apps by describing them, and an agent that keeps working when you're not there.

Microsoft announced a new version of Copilot on 25 September. Home is a single starting screen where Chat and Cowork sit together. Code builds small apps and workflows from a plain description. Autopilot is an agent that keeps working on a task after you walk away.

Home puts the Office apps inside Copilot, so a document you ask for opens as an editable file your team can work on. Code runs in a sandbox and, Microsoft says, can be hosted inside your own tenant. It uses the same technology as GitHub Copilot. You give Autopilot a name, a role and a goal, and it handles recurring work such as supplier reviews or chasing stakeholders. It has its own identity and memory in your tenant. Home and Code reach the Frontier early-access program in the coming weeks, and Autopilot moves to private preview at the end of the month.

The pricing is changing too. Everyday use in Chat and the Office apps sits under a fixed per-user licence. Agent work, including Autopilot and the most advanced models, moves to usage-based billing. For a midsize business on Microsoft 365, part of your Copilot bill will start to depend on how much agent work your team runs.

Before anyone switches these on, decide who can use the usage-billed features and set a spending limit. Microsoft says admins can set spending policies, send credit requests through an approval step, and choose which model families each group can use. Staff will also be able to see their own credit balance and usage history. An agent with its own identity also needs an owner, so pick a person who checks what Autopilot did each week.

Most of this is still in early access or preview. There is time to plan who gets it and how the cost will be tracked before it reaches your tenant.