AI answers Microsoft licensing questions, helps you choose

""It's just become really difficult for a lot of customers to get a great answer." He compares selecting the correct licensing model to "having to spin the wheel," where Microsoft might say one thing, the partner ecosystem might say another, and LLMs such as Copilot, Gemini, or ChatGPT might come up with something else. That's hardly ideal for an organization faced with spending several million dollars or more per year on licensing."

"Brown's approach is to use an LLM, but with a twist. First, the training, is "heavily curated" and based on decades of licensing experience, he tells us. Then there are inaccuracies in product usage rights that his team needs to catch and correct. Teams being unbundled from Microsoft 365, which took some time to be updated, is an example of a moving target that required full-time staff to monitor the knowledge source and keep answers accurate."

"It was inevitable that AI would be deployed to help enterprises navigate the labyrinth that is modern software licensing, given the myriad options available from the tech giants. Chris Brown, co-founder of Onyx, a business which says it is aiming to demystify the process, told us it all kicked off when Microsoft began transitioning to a model where it would sell directly to larger customers."

AI is being applied to assist enterprises with modern software licensing complexity driven by numerous options from major vendors. Microsoft’s shift toward selling directly to larger customers has multiplied licensing choices and increased complexity compared with a single Licensing Solution Provider gatekeeper model. Selecting the correct licensing model can feel like spinning a wheel because vendor guidance, partner advice, and generic LLM outputs often conflict. Generic LLMs can produce inaccurate licensing guidance. Onyx offers a curated LLM trained on decades of licensing experience and maintained by staff who correct product usage inaccuracies and track changes such as Microsoft 365 unbundling. The Onyx tool functions as a licensing helpdesk capable of answering diverse licensing questions.

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