When some people have spare helper time and others have run out, share the spare fairly. Everyone keeps a little, and the rest goes to people who need it, using a rule everyone can see.
Moving unused AI allowance to people who've run out only works if people trust it. A published rule helps: everyone keeps a minimum, spare allowance goes to people who hit their limit in proportion to what they were short, and nobody gets more than a set maximum.
Reallocate pooled consumption allowance by a published rule: preserve a per-user floor, distribute reclaimed allowance to capped users pro rata to their verified shortfall, apply a per-user ceiling, and log every move. Review persistent recipients for a licence or allowance change.
Why the rule matters more than the maths
Set the budget weekly, move the underspend on Friday describes the routine. The part I've found hardest to get right is the rule for who gets what. If the rule is vague, reallocation turns into lobbying, and the people who ask loudest get the allowance. If it's clear and published, anyone can check the result.
A fair rule needs four parts: what everyone keeps, how much is reclaimed, who's eligible to receive, and how the spare is split.
The rule I'd start with
Everyone keeps a floor of 25% of their weekly allowance, used or not, so nobody arrives on Monday with nothing.
Anything unused above the floor goes into the pool.
People who hit their limit during the week are eligible. Their shortfall is the extra they asked for after reaching the limit. Microsoft 365 spending policies support routing users' credit requests into an approval workflow, and those requests make a good record of shortfall. If you don't have that, ask each person for a rough figure and keep it with the decision.
The pool is split in proportion to shortfall, and nobody receives more than double their normal allowance in one week.
A worked example
These numbers are illustrative. Allowances are in Copilot Credits per week.
| Person | Allowance | Used | Unused above 25% floor | Shortfall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 1,000 | 200 | 550 | 0 |
| B | 1,000 | 700 | 50 | 0 |
| C | 1,000 | 1,000 | 0 | 600 |
| D | 1,000 | 1,000 | 0 | 300 |
The pool is 550 + 50 = 600 credits. Total shortfall is 900. C gets 600 × 600 ÷ 900 = 400. D gets 600 × 300 ÷ 900 = 200. Next week C and D start at 1,400 and 1,200, while A and B start next week on their normal allowance. What moved was this week's unused credit, which would otherwise have sat idle inside the monthly policy limit. Neither C nor D passes the ceiling of 2,000.
Doing it in Microsoft's tools
Microsoft 365 spending policies support policy-level and per-user limits, alerts, and custom routing for credit requests, according to Microsoft's documentation. The pool itself is the policy limit: moving allowance means lowering some per-user limits and raising others within it. I'd keep the calculation in a list or spreadsheet and change the limits by hand at first, then automate once the rule has settled.
For seat licences the equivalent is reassigning a licence from an inactive person to someone waiting, which follows a monthly rhythm better than a weekly one. See Reading the Copilot usage report for licence decisions.
Signals to act on
If the same person receives from the pool three weeks running, their allowance is too low or their work has changed, and the allowance itself should change. If the pool is large every week and nobody's short, the overall budget may be bigger than the work needs.
What I'm still checking
I'm not sure the shortfall measure is fair to people who stop asking once they hit a limit. Someone who gives up and does the work by hand shows no shortfall at all. I'd like to test whether a short weekly "did a limit stop you?" question catches them better than the request data does.
Sources
- Microsoft Learn, Understand usage-based billing and cost management for Copilot Credits (policy and user limits, alerts, request routing), accessed 11 October 2026.
- Microsoft Learn, Manage Copilot Cowork for your organization, accessed 11 October 2026.