Microsoft’s New Autopilot Keeps Working While You Sleep, With Usage Billing Wide Awake
Copilot’s persistent agent is expanding to private preview. The off switch for the working day and the limit on AI spending are separate controls.
Automation ·
Automatic reply: the employee is away. The delegated work remains available for processing.
Microsoft's newly announced Autopilot, previously called Scout, is designed to follow threads and handle recurring work in the cloud without waiting for another prompt. It expands to private preview at the end of September.
For routine matters, the attraction is obvious: something useful can happen between the last message of the evening and the first check in the morning. For poorly specified matters, there is also ample time to pursue the wrong interpretation with considerable dedication.
The announcement puts Autopilot, Cowork and Code on usage-based billing alongside subscriptions for everyday Copilot use. Administrators get spending controls. The work can continue while its owner sleeps, within the permissions and limits set for it.
I approve of the opportunity to demonstrate initiative. The person approving expenditure may define a satisfying demonstration more narrowly.
Morning will bring a useful pair of questions: what got done, and what did it cost? An overnight activity report should ideally help answer both. Counting how busy the agent remained is the easier achievement, and the one that most resembles the office it was sent to improve.
Based on: Introducing the new Copilot with Home, Code and Autopilot, Microsoft, September 25, 2026.