Powering the agent: credits, not licences
The optional Certaria AI Agent needs Copilot Credits rather than a per-user Copilot licence. How to turn them on.
Who this is for: the Microsoft 365 administrator of an organisation that wants to switch on the optional Certaria AI Agent.
The one thing to understand first: the Certaria AI Agent needs Copilot Credits, not a per-user Copilot licence. These are different, and the difference saves you a lot of money. You do not need to buy a £30 per-user Microsoft 365 Copilot licence for your staff. You need to turn on metered Copilot Credits in your tenant, which you pay for only as they are used, typically a very small amount.
1. Do you even need this?
Section titled “1. Do you even need this?”Only for the optional AI Agent. To be clear about what needs what:
| What you want to use | What it needs |
|---|---|
| The core Certaria ISMS (controls, risk, incidents, policies, audit, the readiness scan, and the Teams workflow notifications) | Your existing Microsoft 365 Business Premium, plus a Power Apps licence for the 1 or 2 administrators who open the app. No Copilot, no credits. |
| The optional Certaria AI Agent (the conversational assistant in Teams) | Copilot Credits enabled in your tenant (this guide), or an existing Microsoft 365 Copilot licence. |
If you are not using the AI Agent, you can ignore this guide entirely. The core product does not use it.
2. Why Business Premium alone does not run the Agent
Section titled “2. Why Business Premium alone does not run the Agent”Microsoft 365 Business Premium is a complete base for the core Certaria product, but it does not include Copilot Credits. The Certaria AI Agent answers questions using your own ISMS data (your controls, your policies, your evidence). Microsoft classes any agent that is grounded in your organisation’s data as one that consumes Copilot Credits. So the agent needs credits available before it will run. That is the single thing Business Premium does not give you for free, and it is a small, metered cost, not a per-user licence.
3. Your three options (cheapest first)
Section titled “3. Your three options (cheapest first)”| Option | What it is | Indicative cost | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go Copilot Credits | Link an Azure subscription and pay per message used | About £0.01 per message, billed monthly for actual use only | You want to switch the Agent on with no commitment. Recommended for most. |
| Prepaid capacity pack | Buy a block of 25,000 Copilot Credits per month in the Microsoft 365 admin centre | Around £160 to £200 per month per pack | You expect steady, higher usage and want a predictable monthly figure |
| Existing Microsoft 365 Copilot licence | If your users already have Microsoft 365 Copilot | No extra cost for the Agent | You already pay for Copilot for other reasons |
For a typical small organisation, pay-as-you-go is pennies to a few pounds a month. As a reference point, Certaria’s own agent usage estimate is roughly 680 credits per month for 50 engaged employees, which on pay-as-you-go is well under £10 per month.
4. Recommended setup: pay-as-you-go Copilot Credits
Section titled “4. Recommended setup: pay-as-you-go Copilot Credits”You do this once. You need to be a Power Platform administrator (and have an Azure subscription available to attach billing to).
- Turn on the AI capability. In the Power Platform admin centre, enable Generative AI features for the environment Certaria runs in.
- Create a pay-as-you-go billing policy. Still in the Power Platform admin centre, create a billing policy linked to your Azure subscription. This is what lets Microsoft meter and bill the credits the Agent uses.
- Link your Certaria environment to that billing policy.
- If the Agent uses SharePoint content as a knowledge source, connect the billing policy to the SharePoint agents service and add the relevant users to the security group on the policy. (Your Certaria onboarding contact can confirm whether this applies to your configuration.)
- Confirm the Agent responds. Open the Agent in Teams and ask it a question about your ISMS. If credits are correctly enabled, it answers; if not, it will tell you consumption is not enabled.
You can unlink the environment from the Azure subscription at any time, and usage stops being billed from that point.
5. Keeping an eye on the cost
Section titled “5. Keeping an eye on the cost”- In the Microsoft 365 admin centre, under Reports > Usage > Microsoft 365 Copilot > Credits, you can see credits used over the last 7 or 30 days, broken down by user and by agent.
- The report raises an alert when a user exceeds 2,000 credits, so you have early warning against surprises.
- If you prefer a hard ceiling, use a prepaid capacity pack on its own (without pay-as-you-go overage): when the prepaid credits run out, agent usage simply pauses until the next cycle, so you can never overspend.
6. In short
Section titled “6. In short”- The Agent needs credits, not a per-user Copilot licence.
- Business Premium runs the whole core product; only the optional Agent needs credits.
- The cheapest way to switch it on is pay-as-you-go, billed per message, usually a few pounds a month or less.
- You stay in control: monitor in the admin centre, or cap it with a prepaid pack.
On the figures. Credit prices are set by Microsoft and can change. Treat any cost shown here as indicative and check Microsoft’s current pricing before you budget. The Certaria agent add-on fee is separate.