Microsoft says it has more than 20 million paid Copilot users who actually use it

Despite the persistent perception that no one actually uses Copilot, Microsoft announced Wednesday that the user base and engagement with the AI ​​tools built into M365 apps like Word, Excel, and Outlook email is growing.

M365 Copilot currently has 20 million paid enterprise Copilot seats, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on the company’s quarterly earnings conference call.

Nadella said the company has quadrupled the number of companies paying for 50,000 seats or more, noting that Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Mercedes and Roche have more than 90,000 seats. He pointed to a deal announced earlier this week with Accenture for more than 740,000 seats. “This is the co-pilot’s biggest victory ever,” he said.

What’s more, he argues, people use Copilot the same way they use email.

“Copilot queries per user increased nearly 20% quarter over quarter. Given this momentum, weekly engagement is now at the same level as Outlook,” he said. “It’s like a habit of heavy daily use.”

He emphasized that Copilot does not rely on one model like OpenAI.

“Multiple models are now accessible in chat by default. Intelligent automatic routing of agents allows them to provide critiques and advice, and multiple models can be used together to generate the best response,” he said.

For example, Microsoft 365 supports Anthropic’s Claude.

In fact, Morgan Stanley’s Keith Weiss said on Wednesday’s quarterly earnings call, “I think the Microsoft 365 Copilot numbers are very impressive and much higher than most people expected.”

Agent mode is one area where they’re driving usage, saying, “As of last week, Agent mode is the default experience for Copilot, Word Excel, and PowerPoint.”

Microsoft made Copilot’s agent functionality generally available last week. This allows Copilot to perform multi-step actions directly within the document. “With Copilot, we have a new way to delegate and get work done,” says Nadella.