Your Business Software Now Includes AI. Most Firms Will Waste It.

The software Australian businesses use every day — Microsoft 365, Google Workspace — just made AI standard. Not an optional add-on. Not a premium upgrade. A built-in feature in the subscription you are already paying for.

Microsoft restructured its 365 Business plans on 1 July 2026, embedding Copilot Chat capabilities into every tier. The base price for Business Standard moved from US$12.50 to US$14 per user per month, according to Microsoft's licensing update. Full Copilot — with deep integration across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook — is now a permanent bundle at US$23.50 per user per month, replacing the previous model where Copilot was purchased as a separate add-on. Google made the same structural move earlier in 2026, rolling Gemini into Workspace Standard and above. Workspace Standard pricing moved from US$12 to US$18 per user per month — a 50 per cent increase. There is no opt-out. If you are on Workspace Standard, you have Gemini whether you asked for it or not.

On the same day Microsoft's new pricing took effect, the Digital Transformation Agency commenced a five-year agreement with Microsoft, putting Copilot into every non-corporate Commonwealth entity. The deal includes a A$1.55 million training fund for ethical AI use across the Australian Public Service.

This was not speculative. The DTA ran a whole-of-government Copilot trial in 2024, distributing 5,765 licences across federal agencies. The evaluation report found respondents estimated savings of up to an hour per day on summarisation, information searches, and first-draft documents. 77 per cent of trial participants were satisfied with the tool. 86 per cent wanted to continue using it.

When the federal government commits to five years of AI-embedded productivity software for its entire workforce, that is a procurement signal. Professional services firms and contractors working with government clients should expect AI fluency to become a baseline expectation — the same way digital document management became non-negotiable a decade ago.

Here is the maths. A 10-person firm on Microsoft 365 Business Standard is now paying roughly A$280 more per year at the new base tier — whether the AI features get used or not. Google Workspace subscribers are absorbing a larger hit: approximately A$1,100 more per year for the same 10-person team at the new Standard pricing.

We wrote recently about two-thirds of Copilot licences going unused in enterprise rollouts. The risk is now broader: every business paying a Microsoft or Google subscription is funding AI capabilities in their monthly bill. The question is no longer whether to invest in AI. The investment has been made on your behalf. The only variable is whether you extract value from it.

This is an admin leverage question disguised as a software renewal. The features now included at no additional cost beyond the price increase — email summarisation, meeting transcription, first-draft generation, spreadsheet analysis — are precisely the tasks that consume unpaid hours in small businesses. The government's Copilot trial found the biggest gains came from the least ambitious use cases: summarising long email threads, generating first drafts, and searching across documents. Not the flashy stuff. The repetitive stuff.

First, check what AI features are now included in your current Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace tier. Most businesses have not reviewed their plan inclusions since they signed up. The capabilities that shipped in mid-2026 are meaningfully different from what was available six months ago.

Second, pick two or three repeatable tasks and trial the AI features with a small group. Email summarisation, meeting notes, first-draft proposals, and data cleanup in spreadsheets are the low-risk starting points that the government trial found most effective. Set a baseline — how long do these tasks take today — and measure again after 30 days.

Third, if you are on Microsoft 365, take the free 30-day Copilot Premium trial before committing to the US$23.50 bundle. No payment information is required. Test whether the full Copilot experience delivers enough over the base-tier features to justify the gap.

Key takeaways

Paying for AI you are not using?

Book a call and we will audit what AI capabilities your current software subscriptions already include, identify the highest-value use cases for your team, and build a 30-day activation plan that measures actual results.