Microsoft gets 400 million AI subscribers in 'overnight' switch

Paid Microsoft subscribers can now be considered artificial intelligence users.

The massive change comes as Microsoft has officially changed its flagship Microsoft 365 suite to be integrated with AI.

'Genius move. Rebrand Office, instantly "acquire" 400M AI users.'

Microsoft announced the official shift in a support post, revealing it is now integrating its Copilot AI app into programs like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, as well as PDF services.

"The Microsoft 365 Copilot app is your everyday productivity app for work and life that helps you find and edit files, scan documents, and create content on the go," the company wrote.

With an estimated 430 million paid user licenses for Microsoft 365 worldwide as of mid-2025, the company can now say it has by far the most AI subscribers, with OpenAI reaching just 5 million last August. At the same time, Grok itself estimates it has about 1.4 million paid users.

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Microsoft has been talking about the integration for at least a year, stating in January 2025 that Copilot was the "top reason" subscribers chose to pay for Microsoft 365.

Along with taking the creation of slideshows and to-do lists off a user's plate, the Copilot app was boasted as being involved in nearly every daily task. This included using Copilot to "analyze your budget," "create a recipe," or read a user's emails for them and provide a summary.

At the same time, Microsoft said that it does not use "prompts, responses, or file content (such as Word documents or Excel spreadsheets)" from users to train its AI models.

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Photo by Ying Tang/NurPhoto via Getty Images

User reactions were mixed when responding to the change in a viral X post by Ask Perplexity. The account has over 385,000 followers, and the post was seen more than 2 million times.

"400 million users just became 'AI users' overnight," the account wrote.

"They laughed at me when I said I was gonna use bootleg Windows 8 forever," one woman replied, seemingly looking to avoid the AI integration.

A self-proclaimed IT professional said, "It seems like every day I see more and more negative changes for Microsoft."

However, many others applauded the move. For example, Katya Fuentes, who lists herself as working for an AI company, said Microsoft's shift was "all upside."

"Genius move. Rebrand Office, instantly 'acquire' 400M AI users," she claimed.

At least one response offered an alternative to Microsoft's mandatory AI infusion. LibreOffice, a document and spreadsheet competitor, added: "If anyone wants, you know, an actual office suite, we're here."

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