Copilot Studio Bot Error – “This Agent is Currently Unavailable. It Has Reached Its Usage Limit” – Root Cause, Resolution & Best Practices

 Overview

Many organizations have recently reported an issue where users interacting with Microsoft Copilot Studio bots receive the following message:

“This agent is currently unavailable. It has reached its usage limit. Please try again later.”

This can block user conversations with bots in production or POC scenarios.

This is a known issue and can be tracked here:
Power Platform Admin Center Known Issue ID: 5650625

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Root Cause Analysis

Behind the scenes, Microsoft introduced a billing enforcement change for Copilot Studio message usage.

Tenants that are using:

• Viral Trial licenses

• No paid capacity

• No paid message packs

• Or not assigned message capacity correctly

…will hit the message consumption limit and Copilot will stop responding, leading to the above error.

Viral Trial users have very limited message capacity, and when that limit is consumed → Copilot blocks execution.

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Resolution / Fix Steps

To fix this for production or active usage scenarios, Microsoft recommends the below options:

Option	What to do
1. Buy Message Packs	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/requirements-licensing
2. Switch to Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG)	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/pay-as-you-go-set-up
3. Assign Capacity Correctly	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/manage-copilot-studio-messages-capacity

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Can Credits Be Assigned at Agent Level Instead of Environment Level?

Yes — Agent-level allocation is possible, but it’s still in Preview.

Reference:
Manage Copilot Studio credits and capacity – Microsoft Learn

Note: Preview features are not recommended for production workloads.

Typically, when you purchase a 25,000 message pack → it applies at tenant level → then you allocate it to specific environments.
If not assigned at bot level → any bot in that environment can consume those messages.

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Best Practice / Recommendation

For production-grade Copilot bots → use dedicated production environments.

Do not rely on:

• Shared default environment

• Trial environment

• Dev/Test environment for Production usage

Why? Because:

• Capacity conflicts

• Data security concerns

• Risk of consuming message packs by non-production bots

Reference:
Design your Copilot Studio Production Environment Strategy – Microsoft Learn

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Suggested Environment Approach

Environment	Purpose	Capacity Allocation
DEV	Building & testing	Minimal / none
UAT	Pre-production validation	Controlled
PROD	Business users live bot usage	Dedicated message pack allocation

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Summary

This Copilot Studio bot usage limit error is happening due to the new billing enforcement.
Trial capacity is not sufficient for real usage → so message packs must be purchased or PAYG enabled.

Action items:

• Confirm message consumption limits

• Allocate message packs to appropriate environments

• Avoid using preview features in production

• Separate Dev / UAT / Prod to avoid resource conflicts

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Final Thought

As organizations adopt Copilot agents more seriously, capacity management becomes critical IT governance.
Proper licensing and environment planning ensures stable bot performance and avoids unexpected downtime for end users.