This week in AI: Copilot Chat limits, Perplexity for stores, QuickBooks AI

Microsoft is rationing free Copilot Chat, and will not say how much

Picture a Tuesday afternoon. Your bookkeeper is halfway through summarizing a long supplier contract in Copilot Chat, and a message appears: this feature is limited right now, try again later. She has done nothing wrong. She has just run into a ceiling that nobody told her about.

That is the practical effect of a change Microsoft posted in its Message Center on November 3. It is adding "fair use" limits to more Copilot Chat features for people who do not have a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licence. Copilot Chat is the free chat assistant that comes with a business Microsoft 365 plan. The limits cover the web, desktop and mobile versions.

What changed

ITdaily reported on November 6 that the rollout began on November 2 for organizations with up to 2,000 Microsoft 365 licences, and follows from November 9 for larger ones. Microsoft's own notice gives November 9 as the date the limits start rolling out. Either way, if you run a small business, you are already in the first group.

Here is what the notice and the report agree on:

• The limits apply to people without a paid Copilot licence, in business tenants (a tenant is simply your company's Microsoft 365 account).
• Microsoft sets the limits. Admins cannot see them or change them.
• Microsoft has not published the numbers, and they can vary through the day.
• A response already being written is not cut off. After that, the user sees a message saying when the feature returns.
• Image generation already had a limit.
• The limits may extend to other Copilot Chat features over time.

Why it matters to a small business

Nothing is switched off. But the free tier is now one you cannot plan around. If a task matters, such as drafting a customer reply or tidying a spreadsheet, you cannot count on the assistant being there at four o'clock on a busy day.

ITdaily adds a detail worth knowing. Most users who hit a limit see an upgrade button, which sends a licence request to your admin. Where staff are allowed to buy licences themselves, they can buy one directly. ITdaily also reports that Microsoft tells its partners a user hitting a limit signals interest in the paid version.

The paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licence costs 30 dollars per user per month, according to ITdaily, who do not say which currency, and a lower-priced Copilot Business option exists for smaller firms. Check the price in your own admin centre before deciding anything.

What to do

For most businesses, nothing yet. Microsoft says no admin action is required. Three small things are worth doing:

1. Tell whoever handles your IT, even if that is you on Saturdays, that staff may see these messages.
2. Check whether staff can buy licences on their own. If you did not choose that, switch it off.
3. Ask which two or three people actually use Copilot Chat every day. If one of them keeps hitting the limit, that is real evidence for or against paying for a licence.

Do not buy licences for everyone because of a limit message.

Perplexity wants to run the marketing side of your online store

On November 3, Perplexity published a post about using its Computer tool for e-commerce. Computer is an AI agent, which means it does not just answer questions: it takes actions in your accounts.

The pitch is a chain. According to Perplexity, Computer reads your Shopify sales to find what sells, recommends a product or collection to push, and builds a landing page in Shopify that you can then edit. It creates Meta ads (the ad system behind Facebook and Instagram) and can set up the campaign. It builds a Klaviyo email campaign, chooses an audience, writes the copy and links it back to the page.

The part that matters: approvals

Perplexity says you set goals, budgets and approval rules. You choose which actions need your review, including publishing pages, sending emails and spending on ads. Owners can ask to review everything before launch. That is the right design, and it is also the whole safety story. An agent with a card on file and no review step is a way to lose money quickly.

What we do not know

Plenty. The post states no pricing or plan details. It does not describe usage limits or how your customer data is handled, beyond noting that Klaviyo audience selection uses "available customer data." Every example in it is Perplexity's own description of its own product. We found no independent results from a Canadian shop.

Customer data matters here. If you sell to people in Canada, PIPEDA (the federal private-sector privacy law) applies to what you do with their personal information. Connecting a new tool to your email list is a decision about that data, not just a time-saver.

What to do

If you sell on Shopify and have a free afternoon, you could try it. Keep it small:

1. Connect only the accounts the first task needs. Perplexity itself advises starting with a focused task.
2. Turn review on for every action that publishes, sends or spends.
3. Start with analysis, such as which collection is selling, before letting it touch ads.
4. Read the price and data terms before connecting your customer list.

If you do not run an online store, ignore this one.

QuickBooks has a lot of AI, and you cannot turn it off one piece at a time

On November 6, CPA Practice Advisor published an overview of Intuit AI in QuickBooks Online. It is a guide to what already exists, not a launch notice, and its author works for a company that hosts QuickBooks Desktop, so read it as a reference rather than a review. It is still useful, because many owners do not know how much is already inside the product they pay for.

What is in there

The article groups Intuit's AI into areas: accounting, customers, payments, projects, finance, payroll, sales tax and business tax. In plain terms:

• Transaction suggestions for bank feeds are listed as available across QuickBooks subscriptions.
• Accounting AI groups transactions it is confident about for batch posting, asks for missing receipts and flags duplicates and miscategorized items. It is listed for Essentials, Plus and Advanced.
• Payments AI studies how customers pay, drafts reminders and suggests recurring payments.
• Finance AI writes performance summaries and alerts you to unusual movements in your numbers. It is listed for the Advanced plan only.
• Project Management AI is labelled beta.

The article is explicit that features vary by subscription, service, region and rollout, so treat its table as a starting point. It does not give prices. Canadian availability is not spelled out, so check your own account.

The catch

Two lines in the overview matter more than the feature list. Intuit states there is currently no way to turn off AI features individually. And the outputs are described as supplemental, needing human review, especially for tax and accounting conclusions.

That means the control you have is not an off switch. It is a review habit. If AI is posting transactions in batches, someone has to look at what it posted. If it drafts a payment reminder to a long-standing customer, someone should read it before it goes. The same goes for any reminder that chases a customer for money.

What to do

1. Open your plan in QuickBooks and see which of these features you actually have.
2. If automatic posting is on, spot-check a week of it against your receipts.
3. Tell your accountant. They will want to know what the books contain that a person did not enter.

What we're watching

Microsoft's note says the Copilot Chat limits may expand to additional capabilities over time. If the free tier keeps shrinking, "included with your plan" will mean less each quarter, and the real cost of AI at work will land on the licence line.

We are also watching for pricing on Perplexity's store tool and for any report from a real shop that has used it with a real ad budget.

Where to start

This week, do three small things. Ask one staff member who uses Copilot Chat how often they hit a limit. Open QuickBooks and check which AI features are running. And if you have an online store, decide in advance which actions you would never let an AI take without your approval.

If you would like help working out which of these is worth your time, you can book a call with Trimotech.