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Microsoft Killing 'GPT Builder' Perk for Copilot Pro Users
A key component of Microsoft's for-pay Copilot Pro solution is being retired in one month.
Starting July 10, Copilot Pro subscribers will lose access to the GPT Builder feature, Microsoft announced this week. With the feature gone, the company plans to focus on creating "different AI features that improve Copilot Pro," it said.
GPT Builder, which was a perk of the $20-per-month Copilot Pro subscription, enabled users to train, create, edit and share custom AI chatbots ("Copilot GPTs") that specialize in specific micro-tasks. The chatbots could be used "for specific purposes, such as for specialized knowledge, implementing specific processes, or simply to save time by reusing a set of AI prompts," Microsoft explained in the feature's overview page.
Owners of Copilot GPTs could share their chatbots with other Copilot users, regardless of whether they had a "Pro" subscription or not.
The retirement of GPT Builder means that starting July 10, Copilot Pro users will not only lose their ability to create new custom chatbots, but they'll also lose access to all chatbots they've ever made with the feature. The deletions will start on July 10 and be completed by July 14, according to a Microsoft FAQ.
Any subscriber data that was accessed by Copilot GPTs will also be scrubbed. For users who want to save the training instructions for any Copilot GPTs they've made, Microsoft recommends they "[c]opy the instructions and save them elsewhere for reference."
Microsoft did not give a specific reason for killing Copilot GPT, which was a key benefit of the for-pay Copilot Pro plan. In the FAQ, the company seems to suggest that the feature did not have enough of a case for business or developer users.
"We are continuing to evaluate our strategy for consumer Copilot extensibility and are prioritizing core product experiences, while remaining committed to developer opportunities," Microsoft said. "To this end, we are shifting our focus on GPTs to Commercial and Enterprise scenarios and are stopping GPT efforts in consumer Copilot."