Despite its dominant position in the enterprise market, Microsoft is struggling to convince corporate clients to fully embrace its AI chatbot, Copilot. Conversations with customers attending the Ignite conference in San Francisco, reported by CNBC, reveal that adoption is progressing slowly and unevenly.
CEO Satya Nadella recently stated that more than 150 million people use Copilot for productivity, security, coding and other tasks. Even so, many corporate clients continue to question the service’s actual value. Consultants involved in Microsoft contract negotiations say several companies are considering dropping their Copilot licenses due to high prices and unclear benefits.
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Launched commercially two years ago at 30 dollars per user per month, Copilot promises to use internal company data to answer questions, summarize emails, generate presentations or extract key points from meetings. However, many organisations feel the cost–benefit ratio still falls short. Microsoft had previously offered steep discounts of up to 50%, but those reductions are being phased out. A new pricing tier, Copilot Business, will debut in December at 21 dollars per user per month for companies with up to 300 employees.
While some companies, such as Land O’Lakes and Pearson, have adopted Copilot at scale, many others test competing products in parallel. Google reportedly won back a client with 16,000 employees, shifting them again to Gmail and Gemini, and startups like Cursor and Cognition are gaining traction among developers.
Microsoft continues to rely on its enormous enterprise footprint. Over 90% of Fortune 500 companies use Copilot in some form, and the company keeps integrating increasingly advanced AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude 4.5. Internally, usage has grown substantially: 70% of employees in sales and support use Copilot daily, compared to 20% last year.
Analysts warn, however, that competition in the AI agent space is intensifying. To secure long-term adoption in the corporate world, Microsoft must clearly demonstrate that the monthly investment generates real results and that AI tools become essential in everyday workflows.
Photo: Beebom
