Microsoft Copilot vs. ChatGPT: What’s the difference?

Microsoft Copilot vs. ChatGPT: What’s the difference?

Today two big names in artificial intelligence are Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT. Both are making huge changes across multiple industries and promise to change the way we work. Many ask, “what is the difference between Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT?” Is one better than the other? Or are they basically the same technology with different branding? In this blog we’re going to take a closer look at both ChatGPT vs.  Microsoft Copilot and demystify the difference between the two and the advantages of both.

The Microsoft OpenAI partnership

An important aspect of comparing Microsoft Copilot to ChatGPT is to understand the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Microsoft has partnered with and given funding to OpenAI to “accelerate AI breakthroughs to ensure these benefits are broadly shared with the world.” (Microsoft and OpenAI extend partnership – The Official Microsoft Blog). This means that there will be similarities between Copilot and ChatGPT and the technologies that power them.

Microsoft Copilot vs. ChatGPT: What are they?

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is a natural language processing chat bot driven by generative AI. It allows you to have human-like conversations and complete various tasks. For example, it can answer questions and assist with composing emails, essays and code. ChatGPT is free to use or is available as a subscription for individuals, teams, and enterprises with features varying depending upon the subscription type.

ChatGPT Free

The free version of ChatGPT gives you a natural language interface. To get assistance with writing brainstorming. Problem solving. Code development and more.  Chat GPT free has access to the GPT 3.5 large language model and limited access to GPT-4o. It also has limited access to advanced data analysis file uploads, web browsing and custom GPTs.

ChatGPT Plus

ChatGPT Plus is geared toward individuals who are looking to have a more powerful GPT experience. It has access to GPT-4 and GPT-4o, as well as the GPT 3.5 available in the free version. Additionally, it has access to DALL-E for image generation and allows for creating and using custom GPTs.

ChatGPT Team

The Team subscription provides everything found in ChatGPT Plus, but includes higher message limits to GPT models and tools like DALL-E. It allows for creating and sharing GPTs within your workspace, provides an admin console for managing your workspace and excludes team data from training the models by default.

ChatGPT Enterprise

The enterprise subscription gives everything that is available in the ChatGPT Team subscription but with unlimited high-speed access to all models and tools. It gives an expanded content window allowing for longer inputs and more advanced administrative controls.

Learn more about the types and pricing of ChatGPT here.

Microsoft Copilot

When comparing Microsoft Copilot vs. ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot has many similarities to OpenAI ChatGPT. Both use natural language processing to allow users to interact with the tool in a natural way. Microsoft also uses large language models to generate responses to users prompts. Microsoft Copilot can also be used for a variety of different tasks from sparking creativity doing research generating new text writing code and more.

Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Copilot is free and can be used for many things that ChatGPT is used for, such as writing emails or reports, doing research, sparking creativity and more.

Copilot Pro

Copilot Pro is similar to chat GPT Plus, in that it is designed for individuals who want to get more out of the Microsoft Copilot product. It is a paid subscription billed monthly.

Copilot for Microsoft 365

Copilot for Microsoft 365 is comparable to ChatGPT Team. It is designed for both individuals and teams working within Microsoft 365.

Microsoft Copilot comes with many more versions. For example, there are Microsoft Copilot versions specifically for use with GitHub power platform service departments and sales organizations, to name a few. For a breakdown of all currently available Microsoft Copilots, please refer to our ebook, “Microsoft’s Copilots”.