Microsoft is moving Copilot Cowork toward usage-based billing and is weighing a fine-tuned DeepSeek V4 option, The Decoder reports. The change reflects concerns that flat-rate pricing may not be sustainable for agentic AI tools.
That matters because AI agents can consume large amounts of inference through long tasks, retries, and background work. Pricing models that worked for simple assistants may break when products perform more autonomous labor.
The reported DeepSeek option also points to a broader cost-control strategy: vendors may mix premium and cheaper models to keep agent economics viable.