Italy opens antitrust probe into Microsoft over Microsoft 365 price hike

Italy’s antitrust authority opened an investigation into Microsoft on Friday, saying the company may have used unclear communications around Microsoft 365 to push through a price increase. The Italian Competition Authority, known as AGCM, said the probe covers Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd. and Microsoft S.r.l. and centers on an alleged unfair commercial practice tied to the subscription’s pricing.

AGCM said Microsoft may not have made it sufficiently clear that Microsoft 365 had been integrated with its Copilot and Designer artificial intelligence services. The regulator also said the price-increase information was presented in a fragmented way and that the way it was communicated may have restricted consumers’ freedom of choice. The case is narrow on its face, but it goes to the heart of a bigger question now confronting Europe: whether a company can fold AI features into a dominant office suite and then use that bundle to justify higher fees without a fully transparent explanation.

Microsoft had already announced on December 4, 2025, that it would update pricing and packaging for select Microsoft 365 commercial suites, with the changes set to take effect on July 1, 2026. In its licensing materials, the company said customers would receive a 30-day notice in Message Center before the update became available in their tenant. Microsoft said the increase applies to Office 365 E3, Microsoft 365 E3 and E5, Business, Frontline, and standalone products including EMS and Windows.

The company has framed the change as a product upgrade. In a December blog post, Microsoft said the pricing update reflected “significant innovation” and added value from new AI, security and management capabilities. That message now sits at the center of the Italian case: regulators are testing whether those additions were clearly explained, whether customers understood what they were paying for, and whether the new bundle gave businesses a real chance to renew, switch or downgrade before the higher price landed.

For enterprise customers, schools and public-sector buyers, the issue is not just the sticker price. Even modest increases can add up across large software contracts, especially when an office suite is treated as essential infrastructure. If AGCM succeeds in recasting the bundle as a consumer-transparency problem, it could sharpen scrutiny across Europe of how AI is packaged inside productivity software and how much freedom customers really have when subscription terms change.

The probe also fits into a broader enforcement push by AGCM, which has been active in 2026 across digital markets. The authority has opened or pursued cases involving Booking.com, Volotea, Glovo and Deliveroo, along with AI-related transparency actions involving DeepSeek, Mistral and NOVA AI.