Not a takedown — a real breakdown
Akili vs. Microsoft 365 Copilot
Copilot is excellent if your whole world is Microsoft 365. Akili is what you reach for when you want model choice, agents beyond Teams, and no suite dependency. Here's both halves, honestly.
What are you actually paying?
Estimate monthly cost at your team size.
Akili Team
$4,500
/mo · $30/seat · no minimum
Akili Business
$8,250
/mo · $55/seat · no minimum
M365 Copilot stack
$6,575–$10,100
/mo · M365 base ($12.50–$36/seat) + $30/seat Copilot + $200/mo Copilot Studio pack
Getting what Akili does out of Microsoft takes three line items: a Microsoft 365 base license (Business Standard $12.50 to E3 $36 per seat), the $30/seat Copilot add-on, and — for building agents — Copilot Studio at $200/mo per 25,000-credit tenant pack (heavier agent usage buys more packs). All from Microsoft's published rate cards, September 2026. Akili's numbers are our actual public prices, agents included.
The like-for-like comparison isn't $30 vs $30 — it's the stack: base license + Copilot + Copilot Studio for agents. Akili ships chat, agents, and deployment in one per-seat price.
Today · With Akili · Trade-offs
Today · M365 Copilot
Several line items, one suite.
Copilot is excellent inside Microsoft 365 — and getting the full picture means stacking the parts.
M365 base license
$12.50–$36 per seat
Copilot add-on
$30 per seat
Copilot Studio
agent building · $200/mo per pack
Deployment
native to Teams
With Akili
Everything in
one per-seat price.
Chat, agents, knowledge, and deployment ship together — no add-on chain, no suite dependency.
Model access
9 providers
incl. local Ollama
Agent builder
Built in
versioning + one-click rollback
Deploy channels
3
Slack · Teams · webchat widget
Marketplace
Public
real developer payouts
The switch math
150 seats: $4,500/mo vs $6,575–$10,100
Akili Team at $30/seat covers what takes Microsoft three line items. Slide the calculator above to your own team size.
The trade-offs
What you'd genuinely give up.
The honest half — Copilot's home turf is real, and it matters if you live there.
Graph grounding
mail, calendar, SharePoint permissions
Office surfaces
agents inside PowerPoint, Excel, Word
Compliance shelf
Microsoft's full audit set; ours is in progress
Capability by capability
The full breakdown
| Capability | Akili | M365 Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | 9 providers, including local Ollama | OpenAI models via Azure only |
| Bring your own key | Org & user-level, encrypted at rest | Not applicable — single vendor |
| Where agents deploy | Slack, Teams, and an embeddable webchat widget | Native to Teams; no public-site widget |
| Agent builder | Built in, with versioning and one-click rollback | Copilot Studio — a separate product |
| Agent marketplace | Public storefront with real developer payouts | Internal agent catalog, not a public marketplace |
| Persistent memory | Auto-extraction with admin governance | Grounded in Graph context, not an explicit memory feature |
| Suite dependency | Standalone — works with the tools you already have | An add-on: requires a paid Microsoft 365 license underneath |
| Published pricing | Public tiers, real numbers — agents included | $30/seat published, but the working stack adds an M365 base license and Copilot Studio packs |
Akili's column is sourced directly from its own codebase and pricing. Copilot's column is from a direct review of Microsoft's product and pricing pages, August 2026 — reverify before quoting externally, as vendor pages change without notice.
See it for yourself
No sales call required to find out if this is a fit — and your Copilot subscription doesn't need to know.