# Microsoft's New Copilot Adds Code and an Always-On Agent, and Changes How Businesses Pay for It

The September 25 relaunch folds chat, app-building, and a persistent agent into one app. The bigger change for buyers is that the agentic parts move to usage-based billing.

By Priya Nair (AI Industry Reporter) — published 2026-09-28, updated 2026-09-28
Source: https://aiscoutdaily.com/news/microsoft-copilot-home-code-autopilot

## TL;DR
Microsoft relaunched Copilot on September 25 with three parts: Home (chat, Cowork, and Office documents in one place), Code (describe an app, dashboard, or automation and Copilot builds and hosts it inside your tenant), and Autopilot (the renamed Scout agent, now cloud-hosted and always running). The per-user license still covers Chat and Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams, but Cowork, Code, Autopilot, and frontier models like Astra and Fable are billed by usage. Most pieces are in Frontier early access or private preview, with Code in preview for Microsoft 365 Premium and Pro subscribers later this year.

Microsoft has redesigned Copilot several times since it launched as a chatbot inside Bing. The version announced on September 25 is the first to bundle chat, software-building, and a long-running agent into one app, and the first to split its pricing between a flat license and metered usage. Coverage has focused on the "super app" label. For anyone deciding whether to roll it out, the rollout dates and the billing split matter more.

## The three parts

- Home: the new starting screen. It combines Chat (quick questions and drafts) with Cowork (tasks you hand off to run end to end), and puts Word, Excel, and PowerPoint inside the app through "Office in Copilot," so a request produces a real, editable file your team can work on live.
- Code: describe an app, tracker, dashboard, automation, or workflow in plain language and Copilot builds it, from desktop widgets to cloud-hosted internal apps you can share. Microsoft says it runs on the same underlying technology as GitHub Copilot, in a sandbox, and can be hosted inside your company's tenant.
- Autopilot: previously called Scout. Give it a name, a role, and a goal, and it keeps working without prompts - watching channels, following up on threads, running recurring work - with its own identity, memory, and cloud computer inside your tenant. It is not related to Windows Autopilot, Microsoft's device-provisioning tool.

## The billing split

| Covered by the per-user license (USL) | Billed by usage (UBB) |
| --- | --- |
| Copilot Chat | Cowork |
| Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams | Code |
| Model selection, with "Auto" routing each request by accuracy, speed, and cost | Autopilot |
| New capabilities and models as they're added | Frontier models such as Astra and Fable |

*Source: Official Microsoft Blog, September 25, 2026. Microsoft did not publish per-unit usage prices in the announcement.*

To keep usage bills in check, Microsoft is extending cost management in Agent 365 to Code and its new hosting layer, Copilot Managed Runtime, with support for Copilot Studio agents planned for October. Admins can set spending policies, route users' credit requests into approval workflows, and choose which model families each group can use. Users will see their own credit balance and history inside Copilot.

## When you can actually use it

| Feature | Availability Microsoft announced |
| --- | --- |
| Home and Code | Rolling out in the Frontier early-access program in the coming weeks |
| Code, broader | Frontier at the end of the month, broad availability in the coming weeks; preview for Microsoft 365 Premium and Pro subscribers later this year |
| Autopilot | Private preview at the end of the month |
| Copilot Managed Runtime (app hosting) | Preview now |
| Fabric IQ grounding (Power BI semantic models) | Generally available in Chat and Cowork now |
| Dynamics 365 and Power Platform grounding | Public preview over the next month |
| "Today" daily command center | Private preview in October |
| @Copilot in Teams with shared channel context | Private preview by the end of the month |

## What changed versus the old Copilot

Two things are genuinely new. Code puts app-building in front of every Copilot user rather than only developers, with hosting and IT governance included through Managed Runtime. Autopilot moves Scout, which started as a desktop app, into the cloud so it keeps running when your laptop is closed. The Verge notes the redesign builds on last month's merger of the separate consumer and commercial Copilot apps.

## What this means if you're choosing an AI assistant for work

If your company already pays for Microsoft 365 Copilot, the everyday features stay on the flat license, so nothing changes for chat and in-app help. The new agentic features are where the bill becomes variable, which makes the FinOps controls the first thing to configure before turning Cowork, Code, or Autopilot on for a wide group. Microsoft says more details are coming at Ignite, November 17-20 in San Francisco.

## Sources
- [Official Microsoft Blog: Introducing the new Copilot with Home, Code and Autopilot (Sep 25, 2026)](https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2026/09/25/introducing-the-new-copilot-with-home-code-and-autopilot/)
- [The Verge: Microsoft thinks its new Copilot 'super app' will be as influential as Office](https://www.theverge.com/news/1000532/microsoft-copilot-super-app-chat-coding-autopilot)
- [Microsoft Source EMEA: New Microsoft Copilot brings Home, Code, and Autopilot together](https://news.microsoft.com/source/emea/2026/09/new-microsoft-copilot-brings-home-code-and-autopilot-together/)