Copilot & Copilot Studio Licenses and Generative AI

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Posted on by Eric Tremblay

Hello everyone,

I'm stuck !

I'm working at a large multi-national company they have the Copilot on Microsoft 365 licenses.

I was following a coarse on Udemy, everything was going well until in the coarse I hit an error / problem.

Things stopped working. I wanted Copilot to have access to PDF and other non-Microsoft documents but that's when I realize that I (the company) needs Generative AI license to be able to access PDF etc.

So, I'm stuck. I need to know what the company needs to get this Generative AI license ?

What do I ask for and how much it costs ?

My boss was thinking everything is fine and that the company has Copilot but he and I did not realize that this is not enough when you deal with non-Microsoft documents like PDFs etc.

I'm also confused on the Copilot Studio license ?

I'm using it now, what is this license ?

What will it "unlock" for me and the company ?

Is the Generative AI License and the Copilot Studio license 2 different things ?

On a personnal level on my private personnel account I would like to have Generative AI to do some exploration and learning but I will search for a trail license and see if can access PDFs etc with my Copilot ChatBot but I think that's locked also on a trail license ?

Any information on this is welcomed.

Here is what my Udemy instructor told me about licenses :

Microsoft Copilot Studio Master : from 0 to Expert [ 2026 ]

https://www.udemy.com/course/microsoft-copilot-studio-complete-course/

If you have Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses (either $30 Enterprise or Copilot Business)

- You and other licensed users can create and use internal agents within your Microsoft 365 environment (Teams, Outlook, Word, SharePoint, Copilot Chat).

- All users who consume these internal agents must also have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

If you want to build advanced agents that: consume external APIs
process PDFs or non-Microsoft data are published outside Microsoft 365 (web apps, portals, custom applications)

- You need Copilot Studio with sufficient credits or pay-as-you-go capacity.

Only creators/developers need Copilot Studio licenses to build and manage these advanced agents.

Users who consume agents published externally via Copilot Studio do not need a Microsoft 365 Copilot or Copilot Studio license.

- Usage is covered by the Copilot Studio tenant credits, not by per-user licensing.

Rule of thumb
Internal agents (inside Microsoft 365): every user needs Microsoft 365 Copilot
External agents (via Copilot Studio): no user license required; only tenant usage credits apply

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,978 Moderator on at

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Hello @Eric Tremblay

So I am going to (not rudely) but ignore Udemy anything as what they said isn't really relevant to helping you.

There are 2 primary licenses for Copilot: Full and Lite. What it sounds like is you have the Lite version, which it does not allow to access PDF's etc.

You want the Copilot Studio License to BUILD something that can talk to PDF's etc.

However, as long as your agent that you built WITH the Copilot Studio license is in Teams or M365, then the rest of your folks just need M365 licenses, not Copilot Studio licenses.

So the Variations:

Developer needs Copilot Studio to build stuff that talks to PDFs

User in M365/Teams internally needs only (lite) M365 Copilot

External People need credits.

If you want Gen AI, then you need Credits also for internal people, meaning for agents that use PDF's, you need Credits, but the license is just the M365 license not the Full Copilot Studio.

So build with Copilot Studio Full License and have Credits in your Tenant

Publish to Teams/ M365 and users need Lite License + Credits, IF you are going to use RAG/Gen AI

Cheers

If these suggestions help resolve your issue, Please consider Marking the answer as such and also maybe a like.

Thank you!
Sincerely, Michael Gernaey

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Eric Tremblay 10 on at

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Awesome, thank you for this. That’s why I wanted to ask my question here where I can get a real answer that is clear and easy to understand.

So I need a Copilot Studio to build stuff that talks to PDFs.

All the users have a M365/Teams internally (lite) M365 Copilot licence.

External People need credits. We don’t have any external users.

>If you want Gen AI, then you need Credits also for internal people, meaning for agents that use PDF's, >you need Credits, but the license is just the M365 license not the Full Copilot Studio.

So, what I understand here is if a have a PDF library that I use as source information my current M365 users need credits if they are using Copilot to Gen AI these files ?
So every time they access these PDF files using Gen AI it cost credits ?

Solution :

I need a Copilot Studio Licence for thé developer ?

I need Gen AI Credits ?

How do I buy these 2 products ?

Thank you very much for your help, very appreciated

Eric @ Montreal, Canada

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