Agent searching for information on the intranet (with a pay-as-you-go model)
In the previous article, we built an agent that answers user questions based on information found on the Intranet. The agent seems quite competent. However, a little friction may be caused by the Microsoft 365 Copilot license required to use it. Not every user may have purchased one.
Fortunately, deploying an agent for all users is no longer limited to this. We can use it on a pay-as-you-go model, where we charge purely based on usage. The end user does not need to have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
Next, we will go over how to make the (Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat) agent work on a pay-as-you-go model.
Azure resource group
Usage-based billing is always tied to an Azure subscription. A separate resource group is created for this purpose under the appropriate subscription.
The example uses the M365CopilotChat resource group.
Creating a billing plan
In the Licenses section (1) of the Power Platform admin center, under Copilot Studio (2), you will find the option to create a new billing plan (3).
We want to create a billing plan for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.
The billing plan is given a name (FFCopilotChatPayAsYouGo), the correct Azure subscription is selected, and the resource group is selected under it.
After a short wait, the billing plan is ready.
A new environment is automatically created for the billing plan.
However, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat agents are not stored in this environment. They reside in Azure in a Cosmos database. The environment created is only related to billing.
Sharing the agent
Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat agents are shared using a link. So we need to retrieve the sharing link. This can only be done by the agent creator.
A link is provided to another user who does not have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. The user can then add an agent using the “Add” button.
And there it appears (https://m365.cloud.microsoft/chat).
Costs
How much does it cost to chat with an agent? The functions consume messages, which cost $0.01 each. If the user has a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, it covers the user’s messages.
Our example agent uses data from the tenant (SharePoint site), so each response costs ~10 cents.
Please note that one billing plan covers all Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat agents. You cannot control costs at the agent level. You can set a common budget in Azure for all Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat agents.
You can monitor the development of message volumes in the Power Platform Admin center.
Summary
It is finally possible to take advantage of these new features, even if not all users have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
Is ~10 cents for one answer returned by an agent a lot or a little? If the user gets a proper answer, and to get it s/he doesn’t have to, for example, interrupt a colleague’s concentration on their own work, 10 cents is nothing at all.
I would like to have more granular control over these. But those governance controls are coming. I hope.