Let’s talk about those shiny new price tags from Google and Microsoft for their AI-assisted workspace tools.
Yes, the workspace bundle you’ve been relying on wants you to think they’re doing you a favor. You no longer need to pay a $20 add-on to get Gemini AI for your workspace.
Now, just a mandatory $2 addition to your existing plan, whether you want the AI or not. This matters to you, even though there is nothing much you can do about it.
So, put down that cappuccino if you want to know what you’d pay for. Not the features but the strategy behind this price increase.
In this article, I will cover…
How many businesses use generative (Gen) AI? Stats that entertain, not bore. You know I love poking fun at crappy data.
The business Gen AI market share. An estimation to set the stage.
Why is this change relevant to Their (Google’s and Microsoft’s) revenue and Their AI strategy? Yes, you paid $2/user/month extra, sponsoring the AI war.
What does the $500 billion Stargate project mean to Google and Microsoft?
How Many Businesses Use Gen. AI?
Look, Google and Microsoft don’t need some Chamber of Commerce survey to know whether businesses are adopting generative AI.
They sit on a mountain of subscription data for their pricing strategy. And it hurts Google to see many more people using OpenAI than their AI assistant.
For the rest of us, though, a patchwork of ‘who’s actually using AI?’ surveys is the closest we get to reading the tea leaves. So, it gives you a rough sense of how many businesses are adopting generative AI, which should at least tell us why Google and Microsoft made their latest pricing moves.
As I mentioned before, data about generative AI adoption is all over the place:
Different groups survey different types of businesses, each with a unique angle on “adoption.”
92% of Fortune 500 companies are utilizing OpenAI's technology. I found this data on Exploring Topics, which referenced Financial Times, which again quoted Sam Altman… well, you can be the judge.
65% of respondents said their organizations regularly use Gen AI— by McKinsey. They did not specify who the respondents are… aside from that, we all know the minimum cost of a project with McKinsey is 1 million+. So, not SMEs.
20–30% of Gen AI adoption, based on the British Chambers of Commerce; 40% based on the American Chambers of Commerce.
Chambers of Commerce tends to focus on small, medium, or regional businesses.The NHS (17%), Emergency Services (12%), and Social Care (11%) in the UK. Based on a paper from the Alan Turing Institute.
Again, the precise number of businesses using generative AI is unknown. Most data you can find varies wildly depending on who’s running the survey, who’s being surveyed, and what “adopting” even means.
At least we know the business Gen AI adoption is between 10 and 65%…yes, excluding Sam Altman’s sales pitch-styled data.
Workspace Gen AI Market Share Data
There’s little data on the workspace Gen AI market share. I found two sources, one from Similarweb and another from FirstPageSage.
Similarweb is real-time and consumer-focused, but it misses enterprise AI use. So it underestimates Copilot & Gemini (built into Office 365 & Google Workspace) and doesn’t measure API or app-based AI usage…
FirstPageSage: it seems like business insights… however, the methodology is unclear; I can’t find how exactly it calculates market share. Still misses API-based AI adoption…
So here’s a finger-in-the-air workspace AI adoption range estimation based on the reason mentioned and research done in the past.
What’s key for this article is this vast, undeniable gap between Google and Microsoft/OpenAI.
Google’s and Microsoft’s Announcement
It is NOT a coincidence that both Google and Microsoft announced their pricing and strategy change at the beginning of this year. My guess is that some factors are shaking up the landscape, i.e., Trump, DeepSeek, low adoption rate, and other competition pressure.
$2 extra per month/users for Google:
For example, a customer using the Workspace Business Standard plan with a Gemini Business add-on previously paid $32 per user, per month. Now, that same customer will pay just $14 per user, per month — only $2 more than they were paying for Workspace without Gemini.
$3 extra per month/user if you use Microsoft:
To reflect the extensive subscription benefits that we’ve added over the past 12 years and enable us to deliver new innovations for years to come, we’re increasing the prices of Microsoft 365 Personal and Family in the US for the first time since its release by $3 USD per month (visit our store to see local pricing)...
Forced AI Adoption
We can start asking questions, knowing the business Gen AI adoption rate (17-65% of companies using AI) and business AI market share data (Microsoft 15-25%, Google 10-18%).
Some questions, so you’d get the shove-it-down-your-throat pricing strategy. And why the price change suits their (Microsoft and Google, of course) revenue and the challenges they face in AI rivalry.
Did Google or Microsoft Get Many to Buy Gen AI When It Was An Add-On?
They tried selling AI separately ($20-$30 per user/month). Should the add-ons sell well, do they still have the need to bundle AI into their core subscriptions? Could this signal a weak adoption?
Do Most Businesses (Users) Find Gen AI Useful?
How often are you frustrated by hallucinations and complex prompts needed to get something sensible? Businesses use Gen AI, but not necessarily in ways that justify paying extra for the $20-$30 per user/month add-on.
Which Is Easier to Predict Revenue, A Mandatory or An Optional Charge?
The uncertainty of having AI as an optional $20 add-on vs. a mandatory $2 price ensures AI revenue stability. It improves forecasting, would it be a revenue play disguised as an AI benefit-for-all move?
Are Most Businesses (Users) Using ChatGPT Instead?
With 60-75% market share using ChatGPT, it suggests many businesses rely on OpenAI. This puts Microsoft and Google under pressure to bundle AI into existing tools so businesses use their Gen AI instead of ChatGPT.
Other reasons like…
Leveraging (and locking in) massive user bases in Workspace and M365, the revenue would differ when sold separately. Maybe even the urgency to recoup some AI investments.
Emerging Competitors, especially the new alliance between Trump and OpenAI’s Stargate.
Stimulate growth when generative AI hype might have plateaued, and push the “AI for Everyone” narrative to enhance marketing.
To compete with ChatGPT’s dominance, Microsoft, and especially Google, are restructuring their AI pricing to lock businesses into their ecosystems.
The narrative of only $2/3 more than before can gloss over the fact that the prior add-on approach allowed customers to make a more deliberate purchase decision regarding AI.
Now, if you want standard Workspace features, you might have to accept Gemini’s AI as part of the package.
From compliance or confidentiality concerns, the question becomes whether you can effectively remove or disable AI without losing other Workspace benefits.
The announcements mention “enterprise-grade controls” but guarantee a tricky opt-out journey. Many started complaining about the hurdles to stop using the bundled AI.
What’s In It For You?… Is Unclear
We’ve been hearing “AI is the future!” from Google and Microsoft for a few years now.
Whether you are on the journey of adopting Gemini or Copilot, you should at least know the risks involved.
Data Privacy & Confidentiality
Yes, Google says, We don’t use your data to train Gemini outside of your domain. Fantastic—but what about within your domain? Where’s the line on how they use your data to improve their product performance?
The genuine concern isn’t just training—it’s metadata collection, AI-generated leaks, compliance risks, and whether future policy changes could quietly expand how your data is used.
Maybe you want to check this with your security team, don’t have one? Then, use these workspace AI tools with caution.
Forced Adoption & “Mandatory” Bundling
There’s a fine line between “AI is included” and “AI is forced on you.” You don’t have granular control over whether or not you turn on AI capability in specific apps. If it’s on, then it’s everywhere.
Ways to turn Gemini or Copilot off? Yes. Easy to do? No, the road to disabling the AI features is complex and full of hurdles… Save or bookmark this in case you want to do it at some point:
The On-Going Tech Giants AI War- Star
The recent price hikes and forced bundling are just the tip of the iceberg in a more significant battle for enterprise loyalty. I’ve told a story about it:
If you’re Google or Microsoft, your biggest asset is scale. You have billions of users, deep pockets, cloud infrastructure, and a global partner ecosystem.
Especially for Google, your biggest threat is other models that innovate faster with less (e.g., DeepSeek) or those that partner up with the government (i.e., the $500B Stargate).
I have some doubts about the $500B…
A big question mark is whether SoftBank has the cash, the network to raise, or Oracle has the infrastructure (or the quality) priced at the level they committed to.
The project was initially discussed at $100 billion but was quickly multiplied to $500 billion with minimal public disclosure of additional funding sources…
Some major contributors, like Microsoft and Oracle (loaded with debt), have already made commitments elsewhere.
As of now, there isn’t a publicly available official document detailing Stargate. The only official articles are the following… so it’s still in the air (dream).
Google— needs to do more than push the extra $2
Google's response to the generative AI revolution has been criticized as slow and reactive.
You know that the bottlenecks of AI developments are model advancement, resource supply, and infrastructure. IF Stargate has the funds it needs, Google, xAI, and Ｍeta would be under some investor scrutiny if they couldn’t get themselves as a strategic partner.
Microsoft— needs more than just the existing funding deal with OpenAI
Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI has evolved. While it remains a key technology partner, I believe OpenAI would want to spread the risk and use other (i.e., Oracle Cloud) cloud providers for ongoing infrastructure needs. So, it’d potentially dilute Microsoft's influence.
Whose Future Are You Funding?
This forced upgrade may seem like a small monthly bump, but it’s a bellwether of something bigger.
Google and Microsoft are banking on your inertia: that you’ll accept AI whether your organization is ready or not, feeding their broader arms race against each other and the looming Stargate initiative.
The real question is how this shapes YOUR operations in a year or two, when AI is no longer a line item but an inescapable layer of every workflow.
In the end, you’re not just buying a tool, it’d shape how your people work (good or bad).
That’s fine if it truly aligns with your own vision. But if you feel uneasy or unprepared, ask yourself: Is this the workspace Gen AI integration help in my business or merely financing someone else’s race for AI supremacy? Because next year, it could be your data, your autonomy, or your edge in the marketplace.
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