GILD verdict
Choose Confluence with Rovo when Confluence and Jira hold your company's answers.
Choose Microsoft 365 Copilot when mail, Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive hold most of what people ask about, and accept that Confluence permission changes reach it only after a daily crawl. Companies on both suites often end up with both assistants, so decide which one each team asks first.
GILD found no named team that has published running Rovo and Microsoft Copilot side by side or choosing between them. The Confluence side of this comparison is Rovo, Atlassian's AI layer across Confluence, Jira, and other Atlassian apps. Rovo comes with Standard, Premium, and Enterprise Cloud plans with no separate purchase, and each Confluence seat adds 25, 70, or 150 Rovo credits a month to the organization's shared pool. Rovo wins on cost and on Confluence freshness, and Copilot wins inside Microsoft's own apps. Rovo comes with the Confluence seat and reads Confluence and Jira under current permissions. Microsoft 365 Copilot is priced per user on top of a Microsoft 365 plan and grounds answers in Microsoft Graph. It reaches Confluence Cloud through a connector.
Choosing between Confluence and Microsoft Copilot
Choose Confluence if
- Documentation lives in Confluence and work in Jira, and people should ask their questions from those pages.
- You want AI included in the seat, with no separate per-user license.
- You need Confluence permission changes reflected without waiting for a daily crawl.
Choose Microsoft Copilot if
- Mail, Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive hold most of what employees ask about.
- You want the assistant inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams.
- You want an EU Data Boundary service and can live with Confluence reached through a connector.
Side by side
| Dimension | Confluence | Microsoft Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| PriceUS dollars, as listed on each vendor's pages on Oct 12, 2026. Microsoft's prices add to a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan; Confluence's include Rovo. | Standard US$5.78 and Premium US$11.16 per user per month at 300 users, billed monthly. Enterprise from 801 users, billed annually through Atlassian sales. Rovo on all three with 25, 70, or 150 pooled credits per user per month | Microsoft 365 Copilot US$30 per user per month paid yearly, or US$31.50 paid monthly on an annual commitment. Copilot Business US$21 list, US$18 for the first year on annual orders placed July 1 to December 31, 2026, up to 300 users |
| Included at no extra cost | Rovo Search and page summaries on every paid plan, without spending credits | Copilot Chat for eligible Microsoft 365 subscriptions; work-grounded answers need a Copilot license |
| Confluence content | Read natively under Confluence permissions, alongside Jira and other Atlassian apps | Confluence Cloud connector indexes pages, blog posts, and attachments; permission changes apply only at the daily full crawl, emails must map to Entra ID, and Data Center needs a separate on-premises connector |
| Other sources | 56 listed Rovo connectors, including SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, and Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Graph content plus over 100 prebuilt Copilot connectors |
| Agents | Rovo agents built in Studio by anyone by default, run in Chat, the editor, and automation flows, acting with the user's permissions; basic runs cost 10 credits, advanced runs more | Researcher, Analyst, and Facilitator agents, with Copilot Studio agents billed in Copilot Credits |
| Where data stays | Data residency for Confluence and Rovo by region; Atlassian notes providers such as OpenAI may process prompts outside the EU unless Enterprise requests Atlassian-hosted models only | An EU Data Boundary service for EU customers; Anthropic models are excluded from it and off by default in the EU, EFTA, and UK |
| Data use | LLM providers keep no inputs or outputs. Atlassian keeps Chat and agent inputs and outputs 30 days. From August 17, 2026 Free and Standard organizations contribute in-app data unless an admin opts out | Prompts, responses, and Microsoft Graph data are not used to train foundation models |
| 200 seats a monthNo Rovo credit overage or Copilot metered agents assumed. | About US$1,042 on Standard with Rovo included, from a US$12,500 annual invoice at the 200-seat tier. GILD's calculation from published rates, read Oct 28, 20261 | US$4,200 on Copilot Business at US$21 a seat paid yearly, over an existing qualifying Microsoft 365 plan. GILD's calculation from published rates, read Oct 28, 202611 |
What practitioners report, side by side
Each product's figures come from its own practitioners, for the group you pick.
Overall signal
Leaders and teams rate Confluence +8, 11 points above Microsoft Copilot at −3. Most of the gap is in praise, with 18 of Confluence's 36 sources positive against 12 of Microsoft Copilot's 40. Confluence has 15 negative and Microsoft Copilot 13.
The score counts the authors from leaders and teams that take a side, one vote each with their latest view, and is how far positive votes lead negative ones, per 100 votes, so Microsoft Copilot's −3 rests on votes split 12 positive, 13 mixed and 13 negative. Each of Confluence's authors wrote one source here, so each source is one vote.
A lead of a fifth of the votes reads positive and a lead of half strong positive, with the same lines below zero. The dots show each source, positive, mixed, negative. Run a pilot with one team to measure how much of its planning and writing stays in the tool after a month.
Footprint on the AI Knowledge Work stack
They differ on five of 7 layers. Confluence owns one that Microsoft Copilot does not, and Microsoft Copilot owns one that Confluence does not. Coverage is each product's placement on this stack, as its product page shows it. Core is a job the product owns; Supports and Touches are jobs it helps with. Coverage says nothing about how well a product does them.
| Layer | Confluence | Microsoft Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Assist | ||
| AI assistant | Supports | Core |
| Find | ||
| Web research | Touches | Supports |
| Create | ||
| Documents | Core | Supports |
| Meeting notes | Touches | Supports |
| Analyze | ||
| Data analysis | Touches | Supports |
The 2 layers where they match
| Layer | Confluence | Microsoft Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Find | ||
| Enterprise search | Core | Core |
| Automate | ||
| Automation | Supports | Supports |
What practitioners praise
Among leaders and teams, Confluence alone has three praise themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Works With Jira and Pages, Spaces & Permissions lead, at 8 of 8 and 6 of 6. Microsoft Copilot alone has three praise themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Meeting Recaps and Enterprise Data Terms lead, at 5 of 5 and 5 of 7.
| Praised for | Confluence | Microsoft Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Works With Jira | 8 of 8 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Pages, Spaces & Permissions | 6 of 6 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Agents, Automation & MCP | 4 of 6 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Meeting Recaps | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 5 |
| Enterprise Data Terms | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 7 |
| Agents & Cowork | Not a theme in its sources | 4 of 10 |
Each count is the sources that praise a theme, or raise it as a concern, out of those that discuss it. A row pairs the two products when both carry a theme under the same or an equivalent name.
A count ending in "so far" has under 5 sources from 3 authors among leaders and teams. "Not a theme in its sources" means GILD found no theme of that name in that product's sources.
What practitioners raise as concerns
Among leaders and teams, Microsoft Copilot alone has four concern themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Admin Controls and Oversharing lead, at 6 of 6 and 5 of 5. Data Use & Security and Confluence Search reach 5 sources from 3 authors only for Confluence, at 6 of 6 and 3 of 5. Microsoft Copilot needs a pilot on the same projects before you choose on either.
| Raised as a concern | Confluence | Microsoft Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Data Use & Security | 6 of 6 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Confluence Search | 3 of 5 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Admin Controls | Not a theme in its sources | 6 of 6 |
| Oversharing | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 5 |
| License Cost & Confusion | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 6 |
| Low Adoption | Not a theme in its sources | 4 of 5 |
17 sources
- Confluence pricing
- Atlassian: Rovo plans and trial
- Atlassian Support: How Rovo credits work
- Atlassian: Available Rovo connectors
- Atlassian Support: Rovo data, privacy, and usage guidelines
- Atlassian Support: Understand data residency
- Atlassian Support: Data contribution settings
- Atlassian Support: Manage Rovo access
- Atlassian Trust Center: Rovo AI security and trust
- Microsoft Copilot for enterprise: plans and pricing
- Microsoft Copilot for business: plans and pricing
- Microsoft Learn: License options for Microsoft Copilot
- Microsoft Learn: Data, privacy, and security for Microsoft Copilot
- Microsoft Learn: Copilot connectors overview
- Microsoft Learn: Confluence Cloud Copilot connector overview
- Microsoft Learn: Anthropic models in Microsoft Online Services
- Microsoft Learn: Copilot Studio licensing