Watch this video to discover what’s new in Microsoft 365 for SMBs, including Copilot, enhanced security features, and upcoming pricing changes.

Hi everyone and welcome to Wavenet’s AIQ. My name is David Campbell, and I’m the Product Manager for Modern Work. Today we’re talking about updates from Microsoft that affect our smaller customers, those with 300 users and under. There are some major changes we’re going to be discussing, including the new Copilot for Business license, some security bundling, and also a price increase coming in June. I’m joined today by Michael Sittig and Ella Goodhart, who are Microsoft licensing specialists.

Shall we talk about Copilot for Business?

Yeah, absolutely. At the end of last year, Microsoft announced a new product called Microsoft Copilot for Business. It launched on December 1st. It’s the same Microsoft Copilot experience that enterprise customers have been familiar with, but at a new and reduced price point for SMBs. The key takeaway is that it’s exactly the same Copilot product that enterprises have today, just at a lower price for SMBs.

To give you an idea, pricing starts at around £16.10 per user per month when paid annually. You can pay monthly if you prefer, but still with an annual commitment, and that comes with about a 5% increase.

So it’s the same Copilot everyone was buying before, just at a much lower price. I suppose the catch is that it’s only available for companies with up to 300 users.

Exactly. Microsoft recognises that smaller organisations still stand to gain a lot of value from AI, but accessing Copilot at its previous price point was challenging. It created a financial blocker, so releasing it at a lower price makes it much more accessible for SMBs.

There’s also an additional 15% discount available until the end of March, as well as further discounts when bundling it with Microsoft business licence types.

So if you’re buying something like Microsoft Business Premium, you can now get it with Copilot attached.

Absolutely. That gives you an even bigger discount than buying them separately.

So customers get all the benefits of Copilot. They can generate content, analyse data, and summarise emails without needing an enterprise licence.

Exactly. It integrates into Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in exactly the same way as it does for enterprises.

If a company is just starting out with Copilot, Wavenet offers monthly webinars and training sessions. Customers can sign up to newsletters to join these free sessions.

Let’s move on to the security bundles, including Defender and Purview.

Microsoft has introduced Defender for Business and Defender for Business Suite. The Suite allows a Business Premium customer to reach the same level of security as a Microsoft 365 E5 customer, including all the same advanced security functionality.

Microsoft has essentially taken its best security and compliance features from the E5 licence and created bolt-on products specifically for customers using Microsoft 365 Business Premium. This gives SMBs access to enterprise-grade security and compliance at a much more affordable price.

The timing of these security bundles aligns with Copilot’s advantage over other AI tools. Many organisations choose Copilot over alternatives like ChatGPT or Gemini because of Microsoft’s strong security offering.

You can also buy these products separately. Microsoft 365 Defender for Business Premium or Microsoft 365 Purview for Business Premium are each priced at $10 per user per month. If you buy both together, you can get them for $15 per user per month instead of $20.

Microsoft is particularly strong with bundling. Businesses can combine Office apps, security, and Copilot licensing into one package.

Working with partners like Wavenet is important as they help with data assessments, governance strategies, and deploying solutions such as extended detection and response through their CyberGuard division.

For example, Purview helps with data governance and prevents data leakage. Many organisations are concerned about employees using tools like ChatGPT and potentially uploading sensitive information. This is one of the reasons Copilot is gaining traction in the market.

With these bundles, SMBs can access E5-level security features, including identity protection, endpoint security, email defence, cloud app security, and compliance tools, but at SMB pricing.

Let’s now talk about the upcoming price increase.

Unfortunately, there is a global price increase affecting almost every Microsoft 365 product, from E3 and E5 licences down to Business Basic. However, Microsoft 365 Business Premium is not increasing in price.

Microsoft likely recognises the strong adoption and value of Business Premium. Keeping the price stable supports its accessibility for SMBs and encourages businesses to adopt it and then add security and compliance features.

The price increases are expected to be in the range of 7% to 10%.

Over the past year, Microsoft has added significant functionality to Microsoft 365, including Copilot chat. Users with base licences now have access to some Copilot features within apps like Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint.

These features allow users to create documents, summarise emails, and analyse data. While it’s not the full Copilot experience, it’s more functionality than before.

The key difference between the free and paid versions is that the full paid Copilot uses company data to generate responses, while the free version uses publicly available web data.

This creates a more intelligent experience, often described as “work intelligence.” It understands how people collaborate within an organisation and provides more relevant outputs.

Microsoft is factoring all these enhancements into its pricing. These changes take effect from June 1st, but customers will only see the increase at their next renewal date after that.

Another factor behind the price increase is Microsoft’s significant investment in AI. The company has spent billions on data centres and processing power, including a reported $80 billion investment in AI infrastructure.

These investments need to be monetised, which is contributing to the pricing changes.

That concludes the update. Wavenet regularly shares insights on AIQ and Microsoft developments. Viewers are encouraged to explore more content or get in touch for further information.

Thanks for watching.