Microsoft now sells Copilot without requiring a full E5 upgrade
Microsoft updated its licensing rules so customers with Education or Business subscriptions that lack Teams can buy Microsoft 365 Copilot as a separate add-on. The change removes the previous requirement to hold an E5 or equivalent bundle that already included Teams. Copilot features in SharePoint and Teams become available once the standalone license is purchased. Full functionality still depends on having the Copilot license itself. The update targets mid-sized organisations that previously faced an all-or-nothing upgrade decision.
Before this change, Copilot access was effectively gated behind expensive E5 bundles that many 100-2000 employee organisations never bought. Most admins therefore had a built-in delay before they had to confront AI governance questions. Now the product is easier to acquire, which means the same small IT team that still has 300 ungoverned Teams and stale external sharing permissions can suddenly turn on an AI tool that reads every file those Teams contain. The compliance surface expands before the controls are in place.
Analysis
Treat this as a trap, not an opportunity. Do not purchase any Copilot licenses until you have a documented Teams lifecycle policy and an automated external sharing review running on a schedule. Buy the license only after those two controls exist.
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