Last year, I said I would not pay for AI. And I'm not the only one, so Microsoft and Google have both adjusted their business models accordingly. Both of the respective changes are improvements. But each is different from the other. And one is superior, meaning it's the better value for customers.
If you didn't read I Will Not Pay for AI (Premium), the short version is that Microsoft and Google were extorting customers by making AI features--Copilot-branded in Microsoft's case and Gemini-branded in Google's--exorbitantly expensive add-ons to existing paid subscriptions. And I was having none of it. I don't mind paying for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace--indeed, I pay for the commercial and consumer versions of each--but I have no interest at all in paying for features that should just be part of those subscriptions. That's like paying for a word processor and then paying extra for spell checking. Nope. Not going to happen.
The issue here is two-fold. First, AI is or will be a part of virtually all the digital products and services we use, just like spelling checking is part of a word processor. Second, the added cost of these extra AI features was beyond unreasonable.
As just one example, a Microsoft 365 Family subscription gives full Office app usage on desktop and mobile across multiple devices, 1 TB of OneDrive storage, and other perks to six users for $120 per year. But a Copilot Pro subscription--the consumer version of Microsoft 365 Copilot--costs an additional $20 per user per month. If just one user on Microsoft 365 Family paid for Copilot Pro, the annual cost would be three times higher, or $360. If all six users went all-in, the total annual cost would jump from $120 to an ungodly $1560. That's not just incommensurate to the added value, it's insane.
Google's pricing was similar. It has offered Gemini add-ons for its commercial Workspace customers and Google One plans that include Gemini Advanced, roughly following the same pricing scheme as Microsoft: An additional $20 per user per month for consumers and an additional $30 per user per month for businesses. Again, insane.
But in the wake of my AI editorial, which I published last August, it was clear that I wasn't the only Microsoft and Google customer uninterested in helping these companies pay for their expensive AI infrastructures. And in the months since then, both have adjusted the business models for adding AI functionality to their respective productivity offerings. The new models are familiar and, in some ways, similar to each other. That said, they are also quite different from each other too.
Here's the short version.
Microsoft will continue offering multiple Microsoft 365 subscription tiers for its commercial and consumer customers. It will also continue offering those expensive paid add-ons--Microsoft 365 Copilot in the commercial space and Microsoft Copilot Pro for consumers--at the same expensive per user/per month prices. But it will also ...
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