Key takeaways
- Copilot failures usually come from sign-in, licence, outdated apps, network filtering or a service incident; check them in that order.
- Copilot needs an internet connection; only some on-device Windows features on Copilot+ PCs work without it.
- Consumer Copilot keeps chats until you delete them; work accounts follow the organisation's retention policies.
- Claude saves chats in your account until you delete them, with privacy settings that control training use.
- Copilot Studio meters agent usage in Copilot Credits; consumer plans use a separate allowance of AI credits.
Copilot usually stops working because of a sign-in or licence problem, an outdated app, a network or firewall block, a policy set by your organisation, or an outage at Microsoft. It also needs an internet connection, since its models run in the cloud. This page walks through fixes for constant and intermittent failures, what works offline, how long Copilot and Claude keep your chats, and how Copilot credits and Copilot Studio work.
Why does Copilot not work?
The most common causes are being signed in with the wrong account, a missing licence for the feature you want, an outdated Windows, Edge or Office version, a network that blocks Copilot, or a policy that disables it on work devices.
A checklist that fixes most cases:
- Confirm which account is signed in, personal or work, and that it has the feature.
- Update Windows, Edge and the Microsoft 365 apps.
- Sign out completely and sign back in.
- Try copilot.microsoft.com in a browser to isolate app problems.
- Switch networks, for example to mobile data, to rule out a firewall or VPN.
- Ask IT whether Copilot is enabled for your account and device.
If nothing works, check Microsoft's service status for an incident.
Why does Copilot sometimes not work?
Intermittent failures usually come from temporary service load, an expiring sign-in session, unstable network connections, very long conversations, or hitting a usage limit for a feature such as image creation.
Patterns and fixes:
- Fails at busy times: wait a few minutes or retry; heavy load causes timeouts.
- Fails after a long chat: start a new conversation with a short summary.
- Fails on one feature only: you may have reached that feature's limit.
- Fails on campus or office Wi-Fi only: the network may filter some endpoints.
- Fails after waking the laptop: sign-in tokens may need refreshing; restart the app.
Note the time and what you were doing when it fails; patterns point to the cause quickly.
Does Copilot work offline?
No. Copilot's chat runs on large models in Microsoft's cloud, so it needs an internet connection. Without one, the app cannot send your prompt or receive an answer.
Some AI features on Copilot+ PCs run locally on the laptop's neural processing unit, such as certain camera effects, live captions and some image tools, and those can work offline. They are Windows features, not the Copilot chat assistant. If you need an assistant without internet, for example while travelling, you can run a small open-weight model locally with a tool such as Ollama, accepting much lower capability than Copilot or other cloud assistants.
Does Copilot work without internet?
The Copilot assistant does not work without internet, but you can prepare for offline time: export or copy answers you need, save documents locally, and use on-device Windows features that do not need the cloud.
Practical tips for poor connectivity, common on trains and in hostels: draft prompts offline and send them when connected; keep conversations short so they load quickly on slow networks; use the mobile app on mobile data if Wi-Fi is unreliable; and save important outputs as files rather than relying on chat history. GitHub Copilot in your code editor also needs a connection for suggestions, so download documentation you will need for offline coding.
Do Copilot chats save?
Yes. Consumer Copilot saves your conversations in your account so you can return to them, until you delete them. Work and school accounts store Copilot interactions within the organisation's Microsoft 365 environment.
On a personal account, open your conversation history in the Copilot app or website to revisit, rename or delete chats, and use your Microsoft privacy settings to manage stored data. On a work account, your history may be visible to you in Copilot Chat, and the organisation can retain and search interactions for compliance, like email. If you do not want something stored, do not type it into any assistant. GitHub Copilot keeps chat history in your editor session.
How long are Copilot chats saved?
On personal accounts, chats are kept until you delete them or clear your history. On work and school accounts, the organisation's retention policies decide how long Copilot interactions are kept, which can range from short periods to several years.
Deleting a chat on a work account removes it from your view, but a retention policy may keep a copy for compliance. Admins configure these policies in Microsoft Purview, often matching the rules for Teams chats and email. If you need to know your organisation's rules, ask IT or check your company's data policy. For personal accounts, review the privacy dashboard periodically and delete conversations you no longer need.
Do Copilot chats expire?
Generally no, on personal accounts: conversations stay in your history until you delete them. On work accounts, an organisation's retention policy can delete them automatically after a set time.
Some temporary content does expire: generated download links for files can stop working after a while, and very old features or conversation formats can change when Microsoft updates the app. If a chat contains something you will need later, such as code, a plan or an important explanation, copy it into a document or notes app. Chat history is a convenience, not a reliable archive.
Does Claude AI save chats?
Yes. Claude saves your conversations in your Anthropic account so they sync across the web, desktop and mobile apps, until you delete them. Projects keep their files and instructions as well.
You can delete individual chats, and your privacy settings control whether your conversations may be used to improve Anthropic's models; review that setting and choose deliberately. Deleted conversations are removed from your history and deleted from Anthropic's systems after a period described in its privacy policy. Incognito-style chats that are not saved to history are available too. As with any assistant, keep passwords, keys and identity documents out of your chats.
How do Copilot credits work?
In Copilot Studio, agent usage is measured in Copilot Credits: each interaction or action an agent performs consumes credits from your organisation's capacity, with more complex actions, such as generative answers or autonomous runs, costing more. Consumer Microsoft 365 plans use a separate allowance of AI credits for Copilot in apps.
Also asked as: how copilot credits work
For organisations, admins buy capacity and assign it to environments, then monitor consumption in the Power Platform admin centre. Agents used by licensed Microsoft 365 Copilot users inside Microsoft 365 may be billed differently from public website agents. Because Microsoft adjusts rates and names, check the current Copilot Studio licensing guide before estimating costs. Designing agents with focused knowledge and fewer unnecessary actions reduces consumption.
How does Copilot Studio work?
Copilot Studio is a low-code tool where you build an agent from instructions, knowledge sources and actions, test it in a chat pane, then publish it to channels such as Teams, websites and Microsoft 365 Copilot. A language model orchestrates which knowledge and actions to use for each message.
The building blocks are knowledge such as websites, SharePoint and uploaded files; actions such as connectors, Power Automate flows and APIs; topics for fixed conversation paths; and triggers for agents that run on events or schedules. Analytics show conversations, success rates and where users get stuck. Agents live in Power Platform environments, so development, testing and production can be separated and governed. Start with one narrow use case and expand after reviewing real conversations.
Sources
GenAI engineer and AI product builder with 2+ years shipping production-grade AI systems: RAG pipelines, fine-tuned LLMs, hybrid retrieval and multi-modal apps across vision, speech and OCR, architected end to end from ingestion to deployment. Leads engineering for SCULT INDIA's 14-member team, founded the 500+ member TechVerse Enclave community and has mentored 200+ students. Three hackathon first prizes: Changethon 2025 (IIT Roorkee), Product Genesis at Vividhotsava 2025 (CSJMU) and BYTEBATTLE (MeetKats).
Open to GenAI roles, hackathon judging, mentorship sessions and guest talks at colleges. For campus sessions the inviting institution covers the visit end to end: travel (a First AC train ticket for journeys up to five hours, a flight for anything longer), accommodation, meals, and pickup and drop; the honorarium and workshop fees are negotiable on WhatsApp or on the call, and requests are welcome from institutions that can cover the visit this way. Email pranjulrathour41@gmail.com.
