The company was reportedly toying with the idea of either adopting its traditional approach of per-seat software licenses that would fetch a certain amount per month or instituting consumption-based pricing.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is making significant strides with Copilot, its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered personal assistant, vindicating the company’s huge investments in AI. 

Two separate Business Insider (BI) reports suggested increased traction for the personal assistant.

BI reported Microsoft Commercial Officer Judson Althoff told employees at a meeting that the company is close to clinching a deal with a major customer with more than one million 365 licenses to deploy Copilot. 

The report said the company hasn’t zeroed in on how to charge the customer for using the personal assistant. It was toying with the idea of either its traditional approach of per-seat software licenses that would fetch a certain amount per month, or institute consumption-based pricing.

If per-seat pricing is adopted, Microsoft could get as much as $360 million for a year, considering the one million licenses and $30 it charges for Copilot per user per month. That said, given the volume of licenses involved, the customer may not agree to Copilot’s sticker price, the report said.

The potential addition of many new users is seen as a positive for Copilot, even if it means a discount on the sticker price. 

BI speculated that the unnamed customer was Amazon, given the number of employees involved. Still, its probe with an employee at the e-commerce giant showed that this may not be the case. 

Amazon has reportedly warned its employees about not using external AI tools, and following the publication of the report, an Amazon spokesperson explicitly ruled out the possibility. 

A separate BI report said Microsoft was working on a Copilot version for the Department of Defense (DoD). The report also raised the possibility that the Pentagon was the customer Althoff referred to at the internal meeting, given that it employs about 2.1 million service members and about 770,000 civilian employees. 

On Stocktwits, sentiment toward Microsoft stock was ‘bearish’ (43/100) by late Wednesday, although the message volume stayed ‘high.’

MSFT sentiment and message volume as of 3:19 a.m. ET, June 12 | source: Stocktwits

Some retail traders are not too excited about Copilot. “There is a Rough road ahead. CoPilot is a total bust,” said one watcher.

Another user said, “CoPilot is a mistake. Will ruin core products. need new CEO, Satya making terrible choices,” as they shared a news story about a data leak flaw found in the digital assistant.

Microsoft shares ended Wednesday’s session up 0.36% at $472.62, and they are up about 13% year-to-date.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.<