News
Microsoft Copilot for Security Becomes Generally Available
As previously reported, Microsoft Copilot for Security reached general availability on Monday.
First announced just over a year ago, Copilot for Security is an AI-enhanced security tool. Of the multiple "Copilot"-branded products that Microsoft has developed in the past two years, Copilot for Security is one of the most-anticipated, along with Copilot for Microsoft 365. In a recent interview, Microsoft 365 expert and MVP Vlad Catrinescu described Copilot for Security as a potential milestone for Microsoft.
"Security Copilot will be huge if Microsoft gets it right because security is one of the most important topics of today," Catrinescu told Redmond last month. "You don't want to be the organization on the front page of the news for the wrong reason. It's also not easy to hire more security people. There's a great skill shortage. So I feel like if Microsoft gets that right and it can fully empower security teams to do more, it will be one of the biggest announcements and changes for Microsoft this year."
As of April 1, users can begin accessing Copilot in one of two ways: as a standalone product or as a native tool inside existing Microsoft security products, like Entra, Defender, Intune and Purview.
Pricing for Copilot for Security is based on a consumption model; users pay based on how much Copilot capacity they use, measured in so-called Security Compute Units (SCUs). A dashboard lets users track how many SCUs they have used and how much is left available in their billing period, as well as their typical usage patterns so they can make decisions about when to provision more capacity (and how much).
"Microsoft recommends provisioning a minimum of 3 SCUs per hour to start," according to this Microsoft blog.
According to the Copilot for Security pricing page, a single SCU for an organization using Microsoft's U.S. East region costs $4 per hour. Microsoft's recommendation of three SCUs per hour would run $8,760 per month, without any add-ons (e.g., support beyond what's already included). Organizations can calculate the cost of their projected Copilot for Security usage with Microsoft's pricing calculator here.