Chapters and their answers

Question 2 of 6 · What is waiting to be switched on?

$43,200 a month in licenses, each waiting for a user — rerouted, never removed.

counted from Contoso's illustrative records·priced at Microsoft’s published price of $30 per Copilot seat, assumed as your Copilot seat price until you set your own · Set it

4,200 paid Copilot seats100%

Active this period 2,760Assigned, not used yet 1,280 · $38,400 a monthNever given to anyone 160

The move · rerouted, never removed

Wake the 1,280 seats ready to activate with one nudge each, and give the 160 unassigned seats to the people on the waitlist.

See who is waiting

Take it to your meeting

The deckThe Frontier Firm Report as PowerPoint — one slide per question. This question as a PDFThe sheet, ready to print or save. ListenThis answer, read aloud.

Terms on this page

Frontier Firm — Microsoft's name for an organization rebuilt around AI; Aristo scores it 0–100 from adoption (50), activation (25) and security (25).

Assigned, not used yet — a seat assigned to someone, with no qualifying Copilot activity this period.

Never given to anyone — a paid seat with no user on it.

← 1 · Where do we stand?3 · What is actually used? →

Question 2 · Seats waiting for a user

As of 24 September 2026

Last counted Run #4 24 September 2026

$43,200 a month in licenses, each waiting for a user — rerouted, never removed. 1,440 paid seats: 1,280 assigned seats ready to activate and 160 bought-but-unassigned seats. Illustrative · read-only · 24 September 2026.

Fig · Every assigned Copilot seat, on one scale. The amber bar is money you are already spending on seats with no use this period — counted from Microsoft's own usage report, at your own $30 seat cost. Rerouting puts funded seats to work for people waiting, never removal.

Question 2 · Seats waiting for a user

$43,200 / month · your Copilot money

1,440 paid seats waiting for a user — assigned and ready to activate, plus unassigned. Rerouted, never removed.

Illustrative · read-only · 24 September 2026phoenixhalo.com

The whole story of this money is its own report, read seat by seat through Effective Entitlement.Open the License Report

How we counted this

how waiting for a user is counted · how rerouting works here

So what: pay for your AI strategy with the licenses you already own, rerouted, never removed — this page funds the work. Recovery here means reroute to people waiting — never removal, never a shame list.

Defined: Assigned seats in use — used Copilot within the last 14 days per Microsoft’s own usage report, not merely signed in. Ready to activate — assigned a paid seat, no genuine activity in the last 14 days; this is the activation opportunity. Licenses waiting for a user — assigned seats not yet opened plus paid seats unassigned, at their monthly price; rerouted, never removed. Credits — metered agent capacity (Cowork), billed per use.

See where the money is, seat by seat

seats waiting for a user · credits · the heat map

The whole AI estate — counted figures and estimates, each labeled

$43,200

of which 1,280 seats are ready to activate and 160 were never given to anyone

a month in licenses, each waiting for a user — rerouted, never removed

1,120

$33,600/mo cohort funding

Credit-ready

160

$4,800/mo unassigned

Of which, unassigned licenses

$54

re-forge cost avoided (envelope)

Never re-burned

Where the credits go — and what they make

Earning its credits

$218,190

estimate · Illustrative consumption scenario · as of 24 September 2026

Steer

$12,528

2,088 tasks steered to the free seat — envelope estimate

Licenses waiting for a user

$43,200

Of which $38,400 is assigned seats ready to activate · $4,800 is unassigned — rerouted, never removed

Cowork consumption so far is $218,190 — estimate, from the reading named above.

■ solid seats = counted from license and usage records · ▩ hatched = estimate, with its source named above

Named threshold (dashed): your funded Cowork cap · $320,000/mo.

Fixed bands, never re-normalized: Earning its credits = productive Cowork spend · Steer = credits steered to the included free seat · Licenses waiting for a user = assigned Copilot seats ready to activate plus unassigned seats. Comparable across every view.

Where the credits went — over time

$218,190

Sep '26

estimate

Cowork consumption in Sep '26 so far is $218,190 — estimate · Illustrative consumption scenario · as of 24 September 2026.

◆ What the credits built, counted to date: 3 skills on the shelf · 4 agents built.

▩ hatched = estimate from the source named below the chart

Named threshold (dashed): your funded Cowork cap · $320,000/mo.

One estimated month so far — this is the honest single-month state, not a projected trend. The line fills in as each month is measured.

Consumption cost · three planes

Copilot seats

$82,800

2,760 active seats × $30/seat — assumption · your Microsoft 365 Copilot seat price, until you save your own

Agents & credits

$320,000

envelope estimate — measured when the org connects the Cost Management export

Azure AI · Foundry not counted

—

Aristo does not read your Azure AI today, so nothing in this plane is counted or estimated.

Two consumption lines to grow. The Azure AI axis is empty because Aristo does not read Azure AI today — never an estimate.

License truth: 4,200 bought · 4,040 assigned · 2,760 active

698 Microsoft 365 Copilot seats rescue-resistant 45+ days · 212 raised hands▷ Reroute

The whole license story as its own document — every paid subscription, what sits waiting for a user, who should have those seats, and what the found money funds — rerouted, never removed.The License Report →

Credit ladder: Expand — holdout proves +14% causal lift on 69 proven seats; the budget is earning its keep — expand to the next 1,120 ready.

Funded Cowork budget $320,000/mo cap · next cohort ~$33,600/mo — envelope estimate; measured billing arrives when the org connects the Cost Management export

2,088 tasks steered to the included seat this month — credits protected

Cowork spend at 68.2% of your $320,000 safe budget so far this month — at this pace, 87% by month end — estimate · Illustrative consumption scenario · as of 24 September 2026

Copilot seat utilization — Seats org-wide: 2,760 of 4,200 paid seats are active (65.7%) against your 75% floor — 1,440 paid seats waiting for a user (160 unassigned) · counted

Finance pre-purchase pool — Pre-purchase pool Finance team pacing 1.31× — about 20,533,866 of 21,500,000 credits drawn, projected 28,128,583 by 1 January 2027, so the pool runs dry before the term does · estimate run-rate

Sales pay-as-you-go — Pay-as-you-go Sales team pacing 1.06× budget — $34,921 spent, projected $44,580 vs $42,000 by 30 September 2026 · estimate

Engineering credit packs — Credit packs Engineering team pacing 0.78× allotment — 3,987,173 of 6,500,000 credits used, projected 5,090,008 by 30 September 2026 · estimate

Built once, reused across the org — credits protected for new work. ~$54 protected across 9 reuses — envelope estimate; measured when the org connects the Cost Management export.

416 staff in the labeled illustrative Shadow-AI scenario — no Microsoft sign-in log was measured.
ChatGPT (268) · Claude (148) + 9 smaller apps withheld · aggregate sample, never a name