Microsoft has spent billions integrating ChatGPT into its Copilot AI assistant for Edge, Bing, and Windows 11, and a new code leak suggests it could be planning to recoup some of that investment very soon.
As discovered by Android Authority, some new updates to the Edge browser for Android contain several code references to a 'Copilot Pro' level that is not yet available. Right now, Copilot (previously called Bing Chat) is completely free and, as Tom's Guide recently noted, even provides access to ChatGPT's latest model, GPT-4 Turbo.
But those days could be numbered if Copilot Pro becomes a reality. The code contains references to a “paywall upsell” option, suggesting that Microsoft is planning its equivalent of ChatGPT Plus. The latter currently costs $20 / £16 / AU$28 per month.
Those strings of code discovered in Edge also give us clues about what kind of features a Copilot Pro subscription could give us. These include access to the newest AI models (in other words, ChatGPT's GPT-4 Turbo), priority access to the server and generation of “high quality” images.
While it seems likely that a free Copilot tier will still be available, the days of Microsoft offering us so many free AI perks could be coming to an end.
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The arrival of a ChatGPT Pro subscription has always been a question of when and not if, considering how much it costs to run an AI assistant on the scale of Microsoft Copilot. In the case of ChatGPT, some estimates suggest that computer hardware costs could reach $700,000 a day.
That's why ChatGPT launched its Plus subscription in February 2023, and a year later, it looks like Microsoft Copilot Pro could soon follow in the footsteps of that paid model.
Unfortunately, that might mean the free version of Copilot gets a little dumber, as that version currently gives you access to the latest ChatGPT models and also Dall-E 3 imaging.
Hopefully, some of Copilot's current restrictions, such as being limited to 300 conversations per day, will also be eased in the Pro version. While we don't yet know when this Copilot Pro tier will launch, it looks like we'll be able to find out very soon.
