I've had several conversations this month with nonprofit leaders who didn't know there were two versions of Copilot. Starting April 15th, that distinction matters more.
Microsoft is pulling Copilot Chat back from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for unlicensed users. For most nonprofits — well under the 2,000-user threshold where access disappears entirely — the in-app experience will shift to reduced performance and persistent upgrade prompts. Something that felt like a free capability is about to feel like a trial.
The more important question this raises isn't about April 15. It's about what the free Copilot tier was actually doing for your team.
It was never connected to your internal data automatically. Emails, SharePoint documents, OneDrive files, Teams recordings — none of that was accessible unless staff uploaded it manually. Most users didn't know that. The paid tier is where automatic data access begins, and that's the real difference, not just where the chat panel appears. Only around 3% of Microsoft 365 customers pay for the fully featured version — which tells you something about how many have actually tested whether it delivers.
Where you go from here depends on where your organization sits in its AI journey.
Early stage, still building staff confidence, working with sensitive client or donor data? The paid Microsoft 365 Copilot at $25.50 per user per month (nonprofit rate) is worth a serious look. It connects automatically to your Microsoft data, extends your existing security controls, and lives inside tools your team already uses. For organizations with no IT staff, that starting point matters.
Further along, looking at more complex workflows or agent-based tools? Both Claude and ChatGPT offer nonprofit-discounted rates of around $8 per user per month, roughly a third of Copilot's nonprofit price. You'd need a clear data use policy for either. That's real work, not a checkbox, but manageable for most teams.
The April 15 change isn't a crisis for most nonprofits. It's a prompt. The question worth asking isn't which tool is cheapest. It's whether the AI your team is defaulting to is actually doing what you need it to do.
Has your team had that conversation yet?
Microsoft backtracks on Copilot Chat access in M365 apps — Computerworld →