Microsoft 365 Family to Share Copilot AI Benefits

Microsoft 365 Family and Premium subscribers will be able to share Copilot and other AI usage features with up to five other people on a plan. The change extends access beyond the primary account holder, who was previously the only person able to use the AI benefits included with the subscription. In practice, the person who holds the subscription will be able to include additional people in the plan’s AI access, rather than keeping those benefits for their own account alone. The update also comes with a storage change: OneDrive storage will become a shared 2TB pool for all family members. That means subscribers will share the plan’s total storage rather than having separate allowances described in the source. Files saved by different members will count toward the same capacity, so the 2TB figure applies to the group as a whole. Who can share Microsoft 365 AI benefits? Microsoft introduced AI-powered Office features in Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions last year. These are AI features associated with Office and the Microsoft 365 subscription. Until now, Family subscribers could share Office apps and OneDrive storage with other people on the plan, but the AI benefits were limited to the primary account holder. Sharing the apps and storage therefore did not mean that other plan members could also use the subscription’s AI features. Under the announced change, Microsoft 365 Family and Premium subscribers will be able to share Copilot and AI usage features with up to five other people. The primary account holder can therefore include as many as five additional people in access to the subscription’s AI benefits. The limit refers to additional people beyond that account holder; it does not mean that the AI access is restricted to five people in total. The change concerns Microsoft 365 Family and Premium plans. The source does not say that Microsoft 365 Personal subscribers will also be able to share AI features, so Personal plan users should not assume that this announcement applies to them. Readers should first identify which kind of Microsoft 365 plan they have, then use the announcement only as guidance if they are subscribed to Family or Premium. OneDrive storage will be shared Family members will share a 2TB OneDrive storage pool across the plan. OneDrive is the storage service named in the announcement, and a pool means the capacity is available to the group collectively. This is an important part of the update for subscribers who store files for multiple people: the amount is a shared total, not 2TB for each member. Because all family members will use the same pool, their combined OneDrive files will draw on that shared capacity. In practice, files from one member and files from another both contribute to the group’s use of the 2TB. The source does not provide further details about how the storage will be divided, whether members can set individual limits, or when the change will take effect. Subscribers should therefore avoid assuming that each person will receive a separate allocation or that they can control another member’s use. What subscribers should know The announcement expands the subscription’s shared benefits in two ways: eligible plan members will gain access to Copilot and AI usage features, while OneDrive storage will be organized as a shared 2TB pool. Microsoft 365 Family and Premium subscribers should consider both changes when deciding who to include on the plan and how the group will use its storage. The AI access determines who can use those features; the shared storage arrangement determines how members’ files count against the plan’s total capacity. For a subscriber, the practical next step is to check whether the plan is Family or Premium and consider which, if any, of the up to five additional people should share its AI benefits. The group should also keep in mind that its OneDrive files draw on one shared pool. The announcement does not explain how to add people, manage access, or divide the storage, so those details should not be inferred from the information available here. The available source text ends mid-sentence while referring to an email to Microsoft 365 Family and Premium subscribers. It does not include the rest of that email or provide a date for when shared AI access begins. Subscribers should check Microsoft’s communications for those missing implementation details rather than relying on an unconfirmed start date. In particular, the report does not establish when members can begin using the expanded access or what steps Microsoft will require to enable it. The report was published by Tom Warren, a senior correspondent and author of Notepad who has covered Microsoft, PC, and technology for over 20 years. It is dated Oct 9, 2026, at 10:14 AM GMT+3.