# Microsoft Discontinues Copilot Pro, Folds Features Into Microsoft 365 Premium

> Microsoft is quietly retiring Copilot Pro, its standalone paid AI tier, ending new sales on August 1 and folding whatever survives into the pricier Microsoft 365 Premium plan at roughly 20 dollars a month. By August 18, several once-hyped features get cut outright, including Group Chats, AI-generated podcasts, the experimental Copilot Labs, and Deep Research. The move is a rare public admission that not every AI bet lands. Microsoft spent two years bolting Copilot onto everything and charging extra for it, and consolidating that sprawl into one subscription suggests the a-la-carte pricing never found its audience. There is a quieter change buried in the details too: OpenAI's GPT-5.6 models now run inside Microsoft 365 Copilot with OpenAI acting as a subprocessor, via an admin toggle switched on by default in late July. For businesses paying for these tools, the lesson is that AI feature sets remain in flux and can vanish on a few weeks' notice. It is a useful reminder that the current wave of assistant products is still very much an experiment, even at the biggest vendors.

_Section: [Daily AI Updates](https://www.wortins.com/daily-ai) · Source: TechCrunch · Published Monday, August 17, 2026_

## Wortins' read

Microsoft is quietly retiring Copilot Pro, its standalone paid AI tier, ending new sales on August 1 and folding whatever survives into the pricier Microsoft 365 Premium plan at roughly 20 dollars a month. By August 18, several once-hyped features get cut outright, including Group Chats, AI-generated podcasts, the experimental Copilot Labs, and Deep Research. The move is a rare public admission that not every AI bet lands. Microsoft spent two years bolting Copilot onto everything and charging extra for it, and consolidating that sprawl into one subscription suggests the a-la-carte pricing never found its audience. There is a quieter change buried in the details too: OpenAI's GPT-5.6 models now run inside Microsoft 365 Copilot with OpenAI acting as a subprocessor, via an admin toggle switched on by default in late July. For businesses paying for these tools, the lesson is that AI feature sets remain in flux and can vanish on a few weeks' notice. It is a useful reminder that the current wave of assistant products is still very much an experiment, even at the biggest vendors.

## Source

[Read the full story at TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/13/microsoft-kills-off-unsuccessful-ai-features-while-merging-its-separate-copilot-apps/)

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