There was much rejoicing. Microsoft recently announced expanded availability of Copilot to individuals and organizations. Pretty good news that many of us will be digging into.
Aside from the technical topics (how to use it, how to enable it, etc.), there are logistical reasons this new announcement is good for individuals and orgs. With the new licensing and availability, we can jump in with a more measured approach. We can move forward with the “crawl, walk, run” approach we’ve adopted rather than committing funding or confusing users before we’re ready to deploy new capabilities.
First of all, individuals are now enabled to sign up and start using Copilot via several different options immediately. This gives self-motivated folks head starts to learn what they want and need to adapt in a rapidly changing environment. They don’t need to wait for their organization to sign up, they can use personal accounts (yes, with additional cost) to get the same functionality.
For small to medium sized companies, Copilot is now available without the 300-seat minimum, which was really irritating for the SMB crowd as it left them out in the cold while larger companies could implement more easily. For large companies, they can now implement on a more reasonable adoption path – starting with fewer folks to dig in and learn, figure out best practices, create or acquire learning paths and content, and more before committing significant funding to larger employee deployment and adoption.
As with any new technology, the best approach is a balanced one – even when product marketing is screaming to go, go, go!
Good luck!