AI Builder credits change November 1, 2026: what to check

What's changing

• Since November 1, 2025, new customers can't buy AI Builder capacity add-ons. They buy Copilot Credits instead.
• Starting November 1, 2026, premium licenses no longer come with AI Builder credits. Until now, each Power Automate Premium license included 5,000 credits and each Power Apps Premium license included 500.
• Also on November 1, 2026, AI Builder add-on packs reach end of life. Packs you already have keep working until they expire, but they can't be renewed.
• The AI features aren't going away. Invoice reading, document processing, text recognition, and AI prompts all keep working. Only the way they're paid for changes.

When it actually reaches you

Microsoft's main notice says the AI Builder credits you already have are honored through the end of your current contract term, so for most businesses the change shows up at the first renewal after November 1, 2026. One Microsoft FAQ says these credits are removed on November 1 itself, though, so plan as if they could stop that day. Find your renewal date now.

When a flow or app runs out of AI Builder credits, it tries to use Copilot Credits. If none are available, the AI step is blocked, and the flow fails at that step unless it was built to handle the error.

In simple terms: the old credits and the new ones

There's no automatic conversion from one to the other, and each AI feature uses a different number of Copilot Credits:

Rates from Microsoft Learn as of October 2026. At pay-as-you-go rates, one Copilot Credit is $0.01, and prepaid packs are 25,000 credits per month.

For example, a flow that reads 500 invoice pages a month uses about 4,000 Copilot Credits a month. Testing a prompt in the prompt builder, or a model on the AI models page, is free, and training a custom model doesn't use credits. Running a flow to test it still uses credits.

What to check before your renewal

1. Find what uses AI. The AI Builder activity page in the Power Automate portal lists each AI model and prompt run, where it ran, and how much it used. Have an admin check it, so you see everyone's activity, not just your own.
2. Check your volumes. The Power Platform admin center shows capacity and usage by environment. Note how many pages and prompts you run each month.
3. Find your renewal dates. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, check when your Power Automate Premium, Power Apps Premium, and any AI Builder add-ons renew. If you have an AI Builder add-on, Microsoft says to turn off auto-renew.
4. Estimate your Copilot Credits. Multiply your monthly volume by the rates above to size a pack or a pay-as-you-go budget.
5. Set up Copilot Credits before renewal. Assign capacity to the environments that run AI, and keep test environments separate so testing doesn't draw down production capacity.
6. Watch for agent flows. If you convert a classic flow to an agent flow, its AI steps can only use Copilot Credits.