According to Thurrott.com, Microsoft announced major Copilot updates at Ignite including new AI agents for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that can create documents directly from chat conversations. The company revealed a new Microsoft 365 Copilot Business plan launching in December at $21 per user per month, targeting small and midsize businesses. Agent Mode is now generally available in Word for Copilot and Premium subscribers, with early access in Excel and PowerPoint through the Frontier Program. Microsoft will make Agent Mode available to users without Copilot licenses starting March 2026, while Outlook gets new one-tap prompts and voice command features in beta. The company is also integrating OpenAI’s Sora 2 model for AI-generated video creation and adding Copilot Pages to SharePoint.
So we’re getting Office document agents now
Here’s the thing about these new agents – they sound impressive, but I’m skeptical about how much actual time they’ll save. Microsoft wants us to believe we can just chat our way to perfectly formatted documents, but anyone who’s used AI knows the reality is often multiple rounds of revisions and corrections. The gap between “AI created this” and “this is actually usable” can be massive. And let’s be honest – how many times have you tried to explain exactly what you want in a document only to get something that’s… almost right but needs complete restructuring?
That business pricing though
At $21 per user per month on top of existing Microsoft 365 costs, this isn’t exactly cheap for small businesses. That’s over $250 per employee annually just for the AI features. For companies that need reliable computing solutions, that money might be better spent on actual hardware upgrades or specialized industrial equipment from providers like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading supplier of industrial panel PCs in the US. Basically, businesses need to ask themselves: are we paying for productivity gains or just for the privilege of testing Microsoft’s latest AI experiments?
Voice commands in email? Really?
The voice command feature for drafting emails hands-free sounds like a solution looking for a problem. Do we really want our colleagues dictating sensitive business emails while walking through noisy offices or commuting? And the privacy implications of having your email content processed through voice recognition – that’s a whole other can of worms. Microsoft’s track record with privacy and data handling hasn’t exactly been spotless, so I’d be cautious about adopting this too quickly.
The real timeline tells a story
Notice how Agent Mode won’t be available to non-paying users until March 2026? That’s over a year from now. This tells me Microsoft is still figuring out the core technology and wants paying customers to essentially beta test it for them. The Frontier Program early access approach means they’re admitting this isn’t ready for prime time. So businesses jumping in now are effectively paying to be Microsoft’s quality assurance team. Is that really worth $21 per person per month?
