Gokan's Studio

Microsoft’s early SharePoint AI features – such as Image tagging, Taxonomy tagging, document translation, OCR, eSignature, content assembly, and many more related services – were offered under a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model. Not only SharePoint AI, but services such as Microsoft 365 Backup and Microsoft 365 Archive too.

In this model, any organization could enable AI features in SharePoint by linking an Azure subscription, and would “only pay for what you use. For example, Microsoft documents list “Autofill columns,” “Document translation,” “Image tagging,” “Taxonomy tagging,” and other services as PAYG, billed per document, per page, or per use. This enabled flexible usage without committing to licenses, but required organizations to estimate and budget Azure consumption (often awkward for annual planning) and to manage an additional billing account. Licensing for document processing for Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn.

Knowledge Agent Now Included in Copilot License

Recently, Microsoft announced that the new SharePoint Knowledge Agent (preview) is available to any user with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, at no extra cost. The Knowledge Agent is an AI-powered assistant in SharePoint that can autotag files, suggest metadata columns (via Autofill), summarize pages, find broken links, identify stale content, and even build simple workflows, all through a floating Copilot icon—introducing: Knowledge Agent in SharePoint | Microsoft Community Hub.

In other words, all Copilot-licensed users automatically gain access to the Knowledge Agent’s features without requiring any PAYG subscription.

SharePoint Advanced Management Included with Copilot

At the same time, Microsoft has long time ago confirmed that (and it’s worth repeating) SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM) features are included with a Copilot license. SAM is a suite of governance and compliance tools (site lifecycle policies, data access insights, block-download policies, etc.) that was previously a separate add-on. Microsoft’s documentation now states that if “your organization has a Copilot license and at least one user is assigned a Copilot license, SharePoint administrators automatically gain access to the SharePoint Advanced Management features required for Copilot deployment. Licensing for SharePoint Advanced Management – SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn

• Included SAM features (with Copilot): Copilot-licensed tenants get site lifecycle policies (inactive-sites and site-ownership enforcement), AI-powered insights on overshared content, block-download policies for sensitive files, content-change history reports, Restricted Content Discovery (preventing Copilot/Chat from reading certain sites), and more.

• What this means: You no longer need to buy a separate “SAM” license to use these capabilities – they are automatically enabled by having any Copilot seat. (Administrators may need to turn on some features via the SharePoint admin center.)

Taken together, these changes mean that the core SharePoint + AI features – interactive agents and content governance – have moved from a consumption billing model back into traditional per-seat licensing (at least for now). Instead of speculating on monthly Azure usage, organizations can now budget based on Copilot seat counts:

• No more end-of-year surprises: Your organisation won’t need to allocate money to use SharePoint’s AI assistants. Everyone with a Copilot license automatically has access to the Knowledge Agent and the included SAM features.
• Simplified licensing: IT and finance can treat these as part of their standard Copilot rollout. As Microsoft put it at Ignite 2024, “you can create, use, and share agents as part of your Microsoft 365 Copilot license Ignite 2024: SharePoint agents now in general availability | Microsoft Community Hub.
• Site-wide governance built in: Because SAM features are included, Copilot-licensed organizations now have stronger content controls (such as automatic inactivity policies, site owner assignments, and oversharing insights) without additional licenses.

In practice, this effectively retires much of the old PAYG model within SharePoint. Features that used to require Azure setup (such as content indexing agents and auto-tagging) are now included “free” with Copilot. This return to seat-based licensing aligns SharePoint’s AI features with the broader Copilot ecosystem and reduces administrative friction.

Remaining Pay-As-You-Go Services

Not all SharePoint AI services have shifted yet. The PAYG Document Processing services (Microsoft Syntex) still exist for now. The official list of PAYG AI services still includes translation, eSignature, OCR, content assembly, prebuilt, and custom document models,…. Licensing for document processing for Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn

In particular, document translation (to turn a file into another language) remains a metered service tied to a consumption account, which should NOT. (One reason is that many competitors – e.g., Apple’s Translate app or Google Translate – offer free text translation, so Microsoft should rethink charging for this.)

• Image tagging and taxonomy: Interestingly, many “traditional” AI tag features have been subsumed by Knowledge Agent’s Autofill. The Knowledge Agent can suggest metadata (including tags) for documents, reducing the need for a separate image-tagging or taxonomy service. Microsoft’s content overview suggests that image and taxonomy tagging are still pay-as-you-go, but in practice, the auto-tagging built into Copilot may cover most common scenarios.
• Other Syntex features, such as building custom models for unstructured documents, receipt/invoice extraction, or running OCR on large batches of scanned files, still require Syntex licenses or PAYG. Notably, Microsoft has not announced seat-based bundles for these legacy Syntex capabilities, implying they are not a current focus – and personally, I don’t think they’d do it soon.

Summary

Future direction: Microsoft will likely continue offering the core Copilot experience (agents, content insights, metadata autofill) via seats, while specialized processing remains on usage billing. However, given market pressure (many personal devices and platforms now offer free translation/OCR), we may see more services moved into Copilot over time. In summary, SharePoint is moving from a consumption-billed AI model to a seat-licensed one. As of late 2025, any user with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license automatically gets:

• The Knowledge Agent in SharePoint (auto-metadata, Image Tagging, Taxonomy Tagging, Content Insights, page building, etc.).
• The core SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM) governance controls.
• Access to create and use SharePoint Copilot agents on sites.

This means organizations no longer have to provision or budget for Azure PAYG for those features – they can activate them under their Copilot seat license. Only specialized processing (large-scale translation, custom Syntex models, etc.) remains on a pay-per-use basis. In effect, “pay-as-you-go” for the SharePoint AI ecosystem is fading, replaced by a return to seat-based licensing, with Copilot as the enabler.

Hope that helps,

Renewed Revolution!