Alternatives to Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft's free consumer AI chat assistant with web search, voice, image and file tools
Microsoft Copilot ranks #9 of 12 in AI chat assistants, with an Alt Score of 78. It is proprietary, freemium from $19.99/mo and available on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web and Browser extension. 11 of 12 checklist rows are verified against a public source.
Microsoft Copilot is a general-purpose AI chat assistant available at copilot.microsoft.com, in Windows, Edge, and mobile apps, built on OpenAI models plus Microsoft's own tuning. It offers free chat with web grounding, image generation, voice mode, and a paid Copilot Pro tier, alongside separate Microsoft 365 Copilot enterprise integration into Word, Excel, and Teams.
Individual consumers who want a free, general-purpose AI chat companion for answering questions, research, writing help, and image creation, accessed via the web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, or the Edge browser. It also serves Microsoft 365 subscribers and business/enterprise users who want the same assistant surfaced inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams.
A conversational assistant that answers questions, summarizes and drafts text, searches the web with cited sources, generates and edits images, holds voice conversations, and remembers user preferences across sessions via Copilot Memory. Free use is offered as a baseline experience; a Microsoft 365 Premium subscription ($19.99/month for individuals) raises usage limits and adds agentic browsing, deeper reasoning access, and AI features inside the Office apps, while separate Microsoft 365 Copilot business/enterprise plans add organizational data grounding, admin controls, and developer APIs.
Copilot runs on OpenAI's GPT-5 model family, with a 'Smart' mode that automatically routes simple queries to a fast model and complex queries to a deeper reasoning model, plus a 'Think Deeper' mode for extended reasoning. Conversations, uploaded files/images, and voice input are processed in Microsoft's cloud; signed-in users can control whether their conversation activity is used to train Microsoft's generative AI models and what Copilot retains in its persistent Memory.
Why people leave Microsoft Copilot
Dashed reasons are sourced facts; the rest are opinions. Vendors can dispute.
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Ranked alternatives
Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.
Grok is xAI's standalone AI chat assistant (grok.com and mobile apps), built around real-time access to web and X/Twitter data for current-events answers.
LibreChat is an open-source AI chat platform teams self-host to get a private, fully-controlled ChatGPT-style interface, with agents, MCP server support, code interpreter, and connectors for OpenAI, A.
Poe, built by Quora, is a chat assistant hub that lets users converse with many underlying models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others) plus community-built bots from a single interface and subscrip.
Qwen Chat is Alibaba Cloud's consumer AI assistant (chat.qwen.ai and mobile apps), offering free, uncapped access to the Qwen model family for chat, coding, image understanding, and document analysis.
Meta AI is Meta's conversational assistant, accessible standalone at meta.ai and embedded across WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger, reaching one of the largest user bases of any chat assistant.
DeepSeek is a free web and mobile AI chat assistant from the Chinese lab of the same name, offering its R1/V3-class reasoning models with no subscription.
Feature comparison
Rows come from the AI chat assistants checklist (16 rows). Human-verified cells only. ? means the value has not been verified.
| AI chat assistants checklist | Microsoft Copilot | ChatGPT | Gemini | Le Chat | Claude | Grok |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | ||||||
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| License | ||||||
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| Underlying models available | ||||||
| Web browsing | ||||||
| File & image upload | ||||||
| Image generation | ||||||
| Code execution | ||||||
| Voice conversation | ||||||
| Memory across chats | ||||||
| API access | ||||||
| Free tier message limits | ||||||
| Team / enterprise plan | ||||||
| Data used for training (opt-out) | ||||||
| Custom instructions / system prompts |
Every fact and feature listed for Microsoft Copilot is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.
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License Proprietary verified 2026-07-30
Microsoft Copilot is closed-source; no LICENSE file exists. Cited the Microsoft Services Agreement's software license clause, which governs Copilot as one of the covered Microsoft services.
The software is licensed, not sold, and Microsoft reserves all rights to the software not expressly granted by Microsoft, whether by implication, estoppel, or otherwise.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/servicesagreement -
Starts at $19.99/mo verified 2026-07-30
Cheapest individual paid plan that unlocks the highest Copilot usage limits and advanced AI features; free baseline Copilot chat has no cost.
Microsoft 365 Premium $19.99 /month
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/pricing/individuals -
Platforms Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web, Browser extension verified 2026-07-30
You can access Microsoft Copilot: Online at https://copilot.microsoft.com On your phone via the Android or iOS mobile app On your Mac with the Copilot app On your Windows PC with the Copilot app On yo
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/for-individuals -
Status active verified 2026-07-30
Actively maintained flagship Microsoft product; support docs and model (GPT-5 and successors) were updated as recently as this month.
Last updated: July 2026
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/ai-credits-and-limits-for-microsoft-365-subscriptions -
Pricing model Freemium verified 2026-07-30
Copilot provides a free baseline experience, while Microsoft 365 Premium, a paid subscription, unlocks powerful AI 1 tools, productivity apps, and advanced security.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/for-individuals -
Underlying models available Yes verified 2026-07-30
Vendor's own GPT-5 announcement page notes the model has since been upgraded to newer OpenAI models via automatic routing (no manual model picker for the free consumer chat). Enterprise/Frontier Copil
Smart mode is powered by GPT-5, giving you Copilot's most advanced reasoning and conversation abilities. ... Think Deeper is powered by the latest reasoning models from OpenAI.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/conversation-modes-in-microsoft-copilot -
Web browsing Yes verified 2026-07-30
Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers additionally get agentic 'Browse with Copilot' in-browser actions, per support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/browse-with-copilot (rolling out to the US first)
Conduct research: Need the latest information or a quick summary on a subject? Copilot can search the web and provide concise summaries with sources.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/for-individuals -
File & image upload Yes verified 2026-07-30
File upload in Microsoft Copilot allows users to upload images or certain supported file types directly into their chat sessions. ... You can upload up to 20 files in a single Copilot conversation. Fi
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/file-upload-in-microsoft-copilot -
Image generation Yes verified 2026-07-30
Microsoft Copilot has a built-in ability to create images from text-based prompts. Alternatively, you can also upload an image and ask Copilot to transform it.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/using-image-generation-in-microsoft-copilot -
Code execution No verified 2026-07-30
This is the official support hub's full enumeration of consumer Copilot chat capabilities; no code-execution/interpreter feature is listed. A sandboxed Python 'code interpreter' does exist, but only f
How to use Copilot: File upload Image generation Conversation history Conversation modes Deep Research Browse with Copilot Context Clues in Edge Copilot Connectors Copilot Journeys Copilot Pages Copil
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/ -
Voice conversation Yes verified 2026-07-30
When you start a Copilot Voice conversation, Copilot begins listening and processing your voice input. Copilot generates responses and will speak the response out loud to you.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/using-copilot-voice-with-microsoft-copilot -
Memory across chats Yes verified 2026-07-30
Users can ask 'What do you know about me?' to see saved memories, or tell Copilot to remember/forget specific facts, per the same source.
Personalize your experience with Copilot and provide you with a more tailored experience that meets your needs. You can disable personalization and memory at any time. You can also control what Copilo
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/microsoft-copilot-privacy-controls-8e479f27-6eb6-48c5-8d6a-c134062e2be6 -
API access Partial verified 2026-07-30
Retrieval, Chat, Meeting Insights, and Interactions Export APIs exist but require an enterprise Microsoft 365 Copilot license; there is no public API for the free consumer chat product.
Prerequisites: Before getting started, ensure you have access to a Microsoft 365 tenant (E3 or E5 recommended) and that a Microsoft 365 Copilot license is assigned to your user account within that ten
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/microsoft365dev/microsoft-365-copilot-apis/ -
Team / enterprise plan Yes verified 2026-07-30
Business/enterprise pricing (per microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot/pricing): Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on from $18-21/user/month, Business Standard with Copilot from $23.50/user/month, Busines
For workplace collaboration, we recommend Microsoft 365 business plans like Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard, or Premium, which are built specifically for teams and org
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/pricing/individuals -
Data used for training (opt-out) Yes verified 2026-07-30
Toggle is under Profile > Privacy > 'Training on conversation activity' and 'Training on voice conversations'. Signed-out users are never used for training; Microsoft 365 Copilot (work/school) convers
Train our generative AI models to make Copilot a better experience for you and others. You can opt out of using your conversation activity for model training at any time.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/microsoft-copilot-privacy-controls-8e479f27-6eb6-48c5-8d6a-c134062e2be6 -
Custom instructions / system prompts Partial verified 2026-07-30
Documented specifically for users signed in with a Microsoft 365 (work/school) account; not confirmed by vendor docs as available to free personal-account users on copilot.microsoft.com.
To add custom instructions for how Copilot responds to your prompts, complete the following steps: Go to Copilot Chat and sign in with your Microsoft 365 account. ... Find the Custom instructions tile
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/customize-how-microsoft-365-copilot-responds-to-you
FAQ
Yes. ChatGPT, Gemini and Le Chat have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.
LibreChat and DeepSeek — every license claim links its source.