In short
- Microsoft is adding limits to more Copilot Chat features for staff without a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence: since 2 November for organisations with up to 2,000 seats, from 9 November for larger ones.
- Copilot Chat stays free with Microsoft 365, but Microsoft does not publish the limits and admins cannot view or change them.
- Technically you do not have to do anything. Do brief your help desk, check whether staff can buy licences themselves and decide who reviews licence requests.
Copilot Chat, the AI chat included with Microsoft 365, now has usage limits for staff without a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence. For organisations with 2,000 or fewer Microsoft 365 seats this began on 2 November 2026; for larger organisations it begins on 9 November. Copilot Chat remains part of your Microsoft 365 subscription, and Microsoft says admins do not need to take any action (Microsoft).
Something does change, though. In most organisations, anyone who hits a limit gets a button to request a licence, and sometimes to buy one. Without clear arrangements, your help desk gets questions nobody can answer, and a cost may appear that nobody approved. Three settings and one decision sort that out within an hour.
What exactly changes, and for whom?
Microsoft already limits some features, such as image generation. It is now extending that approach to more Copilot Chat features. The change applies to users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence in commercial tenants, on web, desktop and mobile. Microsoft notifies admins in the Message center under MC1536158 and MC1536163 (Microsoft).
There are three things you do not know and cannot find out:
- Which features exactly. On its support page Microsoft only gives image generation as an example (Microsoft Support).
- How high the limits are. Microsoft does not publish them "because they're subject to change", and they can vary during the day.
- Who is hitting them. Admins cannot view or adjust the limits.
According to Microsoft, staff with a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence get additional features and are not affected.
What does someone see when they hit the limit?
They get a notice in Copilot Chat showing when the feature will be available again. A response that is already in progress is not cut off. Microsoft calls reaching a limit "expected behavior", not a fault. In most organisations the notice includes a button to request a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence from an admin. If staff are allowed to buy licences themselves, they may also see an option to buy one straight away (Microsoft).
Microsoft is open about this in its partner announcement: a user hitting limits is "a natural opening" for a conversation about a paid licence. That need not be a problem. It is a reason to decide for yourself how that conversation goes.
Which settings should you check now?
- Brief your help desk. Microsoft recommends this too. Give them a short explanation: the limit is not a fault, the feature comes back on its own, and licence requests follow a set route. That stops every notice turning into a ticket.
- Decide who reviews licence requests. Requests arrive in the Microsoft 365 admin centre under Billing › Licenses, on the Requests tab. There you approve or reject them, or share a request by email with someone who decides, such as a department head. If you have your own request process, use Connect your request process to show your own message with a link to your internal rules (Microsoft Learn).
- Check whether staff can buy licences themselves. Under Settings › Org settings, Services tab, Self-service trials and purchases, you can see for each product whether self-service purchase is allowed. For each product you choose Allow, Allow for trials only or Do not allow. This requires the Global Administrator role, and a change can take up to 72 hours. New products are set to allow by default, so go through the list (Microsoft Learn).
- Find existing self-service licences. Under Billing › Your products, filter on Self-service. That shows whether licences have already been bought outside IT, and by whom.
- Track licence requests for a month. Because you cannot see the limits yourself, requests are your best signal. For each request, note the department and what the person uses Copilot for.
Is this the moment to buy Copilot licences?
Not automatically. Someone who keeps hitting a limit clearly uses Copilot Chat a lot. That is a good reason to look at whether a licence pays for itself, but it is not proof. A licence brings Copilot into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams and connects it to your own business data. You only get value from that once you know which work it is for.
So start with that first month of requests. Pick a small group with a clear task, give them licences and measure the result after a few weeks. How to set up such a pilot is covered in Rolling out Microsoft Copilot in your team.
Keep an eye on costs beyond the licence too. For new Microsoft 365 Copilot Business licences bought through a partner, usage billing for agents switches on by default between January and March 2027, in all markets. The default limit is 4,000 Copilot Credits per user per month, and you can lower it (Microsoft). What that means is explained in What will Microsoft Copilot cost now that agents are billed per use?
What should you do this week?
Send your help desk a short explanation, set self-service purchase for each product to the option you want, and name one person to review licence requests. Book a short slot a month from now to look at the requests and decide whether a pilot with licences makes sense.
When can you ignore this?
If everyone in your organisation already has a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, this does not affect you. The same goes if nobody uses Copilot Chat or you have switched it off for everyone. And if you work with Google Workspace rather than Microsoft 365, it does not apply. This month's Google news is in Google AI news November 2026.
Sources
- Microsoft Learn, November 2026 announcements, Partner Center, 3 and 4 November 2026
- Microsoft Support, Limits for features in Microsoft Copilot Chat, accessed 5 November 2026
- Microsoft Learn, Manage self-service license requests, updated 17 June 2026
- Microsoft Learn, Manage self-service purchases and trials (for admins), updated 6 May 2026
