Головний виконавчий директор Microsoft Сатья Наделла / Depositphotos
Microsoft raises the subscription price for the Office 365 (Microsoft 365) package with Word, Excel, and other programs, but adds new artificial intelligence tools.
The family subscription for six people has increased by 30% and costs $130 per year, while individual users will pay 43% more — $100, according to Bloomberg. It is noted that the new prices will be effective immediately for new users, and current subscribers will pay more upon renewal.
Thus, the corporation seems to be trying to justify the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars on the development of artificial intelligence. Tools with options for document analysis, text and image generation will be automatically included in the programs of the more expensive Microsoft 365 subscription.
The company notes that this is the first increase in 12 years since the launch of Microsoft 365.
“These changes add the transformative power of artificial intelligence to personal productivity tools used daily by millions,” wrote Microsoft Vice President Brian Ronnier in his blog.
The company also introduced “countless improvements” to the core Office applications and introduced services such as antivirus protection and tools for editing images and videos.
Previously, Microsoft tested price increases in Australia, Singapore, and other Southeast Asian markets, and the results were mixed.
Remember, Microsoft invested about $10 billion in GhatGPT developer OpenAI, which ensured the presence of the technology in all its products. In 2025, the corporation plans to invest about $80 billion in the development of data processing centers for training its own AI models.