Copilot changes from April 15th 2026

[ITGuyNW]

Has anyone seen this?

 

If your tenant has over 2000 users, you will no longer have access to Copilot within Office unless you buy the separate Copilot licence.

 

As a small school, this thankfully doesn't affect us, however MATs will be affected.

 

I wonder what other changes are going to come down the line..

 

Microsoft Removes Copilot Chat From Office Apps for Unlicensed Users on April 15 - gHacks Tech News

 

[itskdog]

Saw that in the admin message centre, I think the only change is that the Copilot Chat button is being removed from the Office apps if you don't have an M365 Copilot licence, and only the full version of Copilot will be available in the Office apps.

 

Copilot Chat will still work through the webpage, Edge, and dedicated apps.

[3s-gtech]

Damn, we don't pass the threshold number.

[pete]

8 minutes ago, 3s-gtech said:

Damn, we don't pass the threshold number.

 

You might need a load of test accounts for reasons.

[Sylv3r]

That specifically mentions Business users, do we think the change will impact Education too?

[Brax]

On 19/03/2026 at 10:56, itskdog said:

Saw that in the admin message centre, I think the only change is that the Copilot Chat button is being removed from the Office apps if you don't have an M365 Copilot licence, and only the full version of Copilot will be available in the Office apps.

 

Copilot Chat will still work through the webpage, Edge, and dedicated apps.

Ahem the *COPILOT 365 Admin Centre.

because of course it is

[ITGuyNW]

We have fewer than 2000 users and its disappeared for us. Has anyone else seen this?

[TechMonkey]

Is it actual users or is it licenses?  Don't forget as Education we get 40*FTE licences for pupils, so the system may well see we have 23000 licenses and mark us as large organisations.

[TheRobins]

I spoke to our licence supplier on another matter this morning and mentioned this. They understand its based on users in Entra with a form of Entra or O365 licence assigned, any user that does counts as 1. 

[ITGuyNW]

On Entra we seem to have 1700 users, so that should be fine. It could be the licences that trip us up.

 

Also noticed this on the message centre. It's becoming really difficult to roll this out to users when they're chopping and changing all of the time.

 

[TheRobins]

From what she was telling me that is blanket confusion on most things at the moment. Said there has been staffing changes in europe which isnt helping. I did see yesterday whilst using outlook online that copilot summary button has appeared. (rarely use it, still hanging on to Office 21 LTSC)

 

If you have 1700 in Entra cannot see that being an issue as far as it goes, but recommendation is to speak to your licence provider. I would assume this limit would be automatically applied and not like the usual, roughly whats your FTE approach. 

[paulkerton]

18 minutes ago, TheRobins said:

From what she was telling me that is blanket confusion on most things at the moment. Said there has been staffing changes in europe which isnt helping.

I've told this story a few times, but it's always worth coming back to.

Over a decade ago now, I was speaking to a license reseller, and I said "You know, I just don't understand Microsoft licensing" and they replied "I wouldn't worry, neither do Microsoft" 

[andy_b]

2 hours ago, ITGuyNW said:

We have fewer than 2000 users and its disappeared for us. Has anyone else seen this?

Disappeared for us.  Have less than 2000 users, but have well over 2000 available A1 licenses.

[ITGuyNW]

1 hour ago, TheRobins said:

From what she was telling me that is blanket confusion on most things at the moment. Said there has been staffing changes in europe which isnt helping. I did see yesterday whilst using outlook online that copilot summary button has appeared. (rarely use it, still hanging on to Office 21 LTSC)

 

If you have 1700 in Entra cannot see that being an issue as far as it goes, but recommendation is to speak to your licence provider. I would assume this limit would be automatically applied and not like the usual, roughly whats your FTE approach. 

 

Just spoke to them. Not a clue haha

[ITGuyNW]

So the workaround now is if the file is hosted in OneDrive, go via the M365 app/website, find the file and use Copilot on it there. 

[TheRobins]

5 minutes ago, ITGuyNW said:

 

Just spoke to them. Not a clue haha

Suprise suprise, Just roll a dice. 

[andy_b]

1213 Total Users and we get Copilot Chat (Basic)....

 

Must be basing it on the available licences rather than Total Users...