Microsoft automatically includes Copilot at additional cost in Consumer 365 plans

Starting 16th of January, Microsoft has added Copilot and Designer to consumer plans (Microsoft 365 Personal and Microsoft 365 Family). More detail on Microsoft’s website.

Of course, this didn’t get included for free, and you’ll see that renewals are now automatically for a higher cost. There are numerous articles with many unhappy people, including the Aussies.

When navigating to your account (https://account.microsoft.com) if you try to change your plan, there is no option to change or disable this.

However, you can choose options to cancel your subscription, and when you do that, you’ll get an option to change back to your original subscription without AI, at the previous price.

As a further note, remember that you don’t have to have an automatically renewing subscription, and annual renewals can be purchased at most retailers (comes in a small box). This will give you a card with a serial number on it, that you add to your account. There is usually a small saving when doing this, at the cost of some convenience.