Microsoft Expands Copilot’s Voice and Think Deeper Features to Free Users With Unlimited Usage

Microsoft rolled out unlimited usage of two new Copilot features to the free tier on Tuesday. The two features — dubbed Voice and Think Deeper — were released to all Copilot users recently. However, those on the free tier could access them with a rate limit. Now, the Redmond-based tech giant is removing the rate limit and offering unlimited usage of both tools to all users. Notably, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot's Think Deeper feature is powered by OpenAI's reasoning-focused o1 model.

Copilot's Voice, Think Deeper With Unlimited Usage Offered to Free Users

In a blog post, the tech giant announced the removal of the usage limit. Microsoft first launched Copilot two years ago and has been improving the AI-powered chatbot with more features. The company has also integrated it into the Windows operating system and Microsoft 365 apps. It has also been added to GitHub.

So far, only Copilot Pro users had unlimited access to the Voice and Think Deeper feature. With the new move, all users can now use these tools without worrying about any rate limit. Notably, the Voice mode is currently only available in the Copilot mobile apps. Think Deeper can also be accessed on the web client.

The Copilot Voice mode is similar to the Advanced Voice Mode offered by OpenAI. However, the latter continues to apply a rate limit to the free tier, which is roughly a few minutes every month. On Wednesday, OpenAI announced in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) that the free tier's Advanced Voice Mode will now be powered by GPT-4o mini instead of GPT-4o. The company said it will give “free users a chance to preview it daily across platforms.” However, while OpenAI did not mention the new rate limits, it is unlikely to be unlimited.

Copilot's Voice mode can interact with users conversationally and its speech contains human-like mannerisms. It can also change the tone, sing a song, and can change the pitch, tone, and inflections. The company said it can be used to practice a new language, give mock interviews, or get hands-free cooking advice.

The Think Deeper mode essentially uses the test-time compute method and reasoning model and takes more time on a query to question the response, look for alternative solutions, and verify the output. Microsoft stated that this feature uses OpenAI's o1 reasoning model. It is useful when users want to understand a complex topic or want a deeper analysis of a technical report.