How to Find Unused AI Licenses in Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude

Each of the four vendors reports the last recorded activity on a paid seat: Microsoft’s Copilot usage report has a Last activity date column, GitHub’s seat list has last_activity_at, the ChatGPT Enterprise user export has last_day_active, and Anthropic’s Enterprise Analytics API has last_activity_date once last-activity reporting is enabled. Treat a seat with no activity in 30 days as a question for its holder, the threshold GitHub uses in its own guide. At Microsoft’s list price, read on November 13, 2026, one idle Microsoft 365 Copilot seat costs $30 a month, or $360 a year.

Before taking a seat back, look at the role. Where much of the work suits AI, an idle seat may mean the person has not been shown how to use it, so train first.

Where does each vendor show the last time a seat was used?

Microsoft 365 Copilot: the Microsoft Copilot usage report

In the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Reports, then Usage, then Microsoft Copilot, then Copilot, and select the Usage tab. Microsoft’s documentation describes a per-user table with a Last activity date (UTC) column and a date for each app, including Teams, Word, Excel, Outlook and Copilot Chat. The report can be set to periods from 7 to 180 days, and the last activity date is the same in each. The table lists everyone licensed for Copilot at any point in the past 180 days, including people who never used it and people whose license was later removed, so match it against current license assignments. It exports to a CSV file. Data for a day usually arrives within 48 hours.

By default, Microsoft hides user names, groups and sites in every usage report. A Global Administrator can clear the setting Conceal user, group, and site names in all reports, under Settings, Org Settings, Services, Reports. Microsoft logs the change, and the setting also covers the version of the report IT can pull by script.

Before calling a seat idle, take the latest of all the date columns. Each app column counts any deliberate Copilot action in that app, and Microsoft notes that the dates for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook can be blank or late.

GitHub Copilot: the Access page, the activity report and the seats API

Organization owners open Settings, then Copilot, then Access, and sort users by when each person last used Copilot (GitHub Docs). The same page produces an Activity report as a CSV file, which GitHub’s metrics reference says includes last_activity_at and refreshes every 30 minutes. For scripts, the seats API returns last_activity_at and the seat’s creation date for every seat.

Activity covers Copilot in an editor, on GitHub, in the command line and on a phone. According to the metrics reference, an update can take up to 24 hours. Editor use registers only when the person has telemetry, the editor’s usage reporting, turned on, so a developer with it off can look idle while using Copilot every day. After 90 days with no activity, last_activity_at is set to empty, a period GitHub says cannot be changed, so an empty value means no recorded activity in 90 days or since the seat was assigned. The GitHub pages cited here describe no setting that hides names.

ChatGPT Enterprise: the user report export

In the Admin Console, go to Usage, then Overview, select Export, then Workspace reports, choose dates and download the CSV file (OpenAI Help Center). Each row of the user report has is_active, meaning at least one message sent in the period, last_day_active_in_period, and last_day_active, the last day the user was active in this or any prior period. Owners, admins and analytics viewers can export it. Data refreshes every 1 to 24 hours, with a 48-hour target. The page does not say how far back the data goes, and it describes no setting that hides the names and email addresses in the report.

Claude Enterprise: the Enterprise Analytics API

Anthropic’s analytics dashboard shows active members against assigned seats, and the help article describes no last active column for each member. The view by person comes from the Claude Enterprise Analytics API, whose key only the organization’s primary owner can create. Its data starts on January 1, 2026 and usually lags by one day. Activity means a chat message, a Claude Code session with tool use or git activity, or a Cowork session with tool use or messages.

The user activity endpoint returns one row per member for a day or a range of up to 366 days. Its last_activity_date field gives the latest active day in that window, but the reference says the field is omitted while last-activity reporting is not enabled for the organization, and it does not say how to enable it. Without the field, add up each member’s counts over the last 30 days. It also does not say whether members with no activity appear, so compare the list with the seats you pay for.

How many days without use should count as unused?

Flag a seat after 30 days without use, then send a reminder and wait a further 30 days before taking it back. GitHub’s guide to reminding inactive users uses the same two steps in its sample reminder.

Thirty days spans most monthly cycles of work, such as a finance team’s close. Where a role works on a longer cycle, such as quarterly reporting, set the window to match. It also sits well inside the history the reports keep: GitHub clears the date after 90 days, and Microsoft’s report runs to 180 days. Allow two days for the reports to catch up, and leave out seats assigned in the last 30 days and people on leave.

What does an unused AI license cost at list price?

The table shows where to look and what one idle seat costs over 12 months at list price, read on each vendor’s pricing page on November 13, 2026. Negotiated prices differ, so use your contract price where you have one. What does AI cost per employee in 2026? covers seat and usage prices in full.

Billing terms decide when a saving reaches the bill. On a Microsoft Customer Agreement, the license count can be reduced only within seven days of buying, renewing or adding licenses, and a later reduction shows on the first invoice after renewal (Microsoft Learn). Unassigning a license frees it for someone else, and the bill falls only when the count is reduced. GitHub bills a removed seat until the end of the current billing cycle. Claude Enterprise is billed annually with a 20 seat minimum, and OpenAI ties seat changes to the Enterprise agreement, so check the contract before counting a saving.

Example: idle AI seats at a fictional 2,000-person company

In this example, the company and its seat counts are fictional, and prices are the list prices in the table above. The company holds 800 Microsoft 365 Copilot seats, 300 GitHub Copilot Business seats and 250 Claude Enterprise seats. In the 30 days before the review, 120 Microsoft, 30 GitHub and 40 Claude seats show no activity. ChatGPT Enterprise is left out because OpenAI publishes no list price.

At list price, the idle seats in the example cost:

• Microsoft 365 Copilot: 120 × $30 = $3,600 a month
• GitHub Copilot Business: 30 × $19 = $570 a month
• Claude Enterprise: 40 × $20 = $800 a month
• Total: $4,970 a month, or $4,970 × 12 = $59,640 a year

The review then sorts the 190 idle seats (120 + 30 + 40). In the example, 25 were assigned in the last 30 days or belong to people on leave, and nothing changes. The example assumes 85 belong to claims processors and financial analysts, roles where the company’s task data shows much of the work suits AI, and those holders are offered training. It assumes the last 80 belong to field service technicians, where little of the work suits AI. After asking each holder, the company takes back 60 Microsoft, 10 GitHub and 10 Claude seats.

Those seats come to 60 × $30 + 10 × $19 + 10 × $20 = $1,800 + $190 + $200 = $2,190 a month at list price, or $2,190 × 12 = $26,280 a year in seat cost, about 44% of the $59,640 total for all idle seats. The example also assumes a Microsoft Customer Agreement with the seven-day window passed, so the Microsoft share lowers the bill only from renewal, and until then the freed licenses can replace new purchases.

What should you do with an idle seat?

Ask first. A short note to the holder and their manager gives the date of last use and asks whether the seat is still needed. GitHub’s guide gives the same advice: “clearly communicate any further action you will take.”

Check the role before you reclaim

Where little of a role’s work suits AI, a quiet seat is the expected result, and taking it back is reasonable. Amazon’s engineering leadership wrote in an October 27, 2026 memo that when work does not benefit from current AI tools, “that is a finding, not a failing.”

Where much of a role’s work suits AI, the same quiet seat may mean the person has not been shown how the tool fits the job, or that something is in the way. Ask, offer training built on the person’s own tasks and look again in 30 days. Our article on whether AI spend is in the right roles puts this case first in line for training.

O*NET, the US Department of Labor’s catalog of occupations, lists the tasks in each occupation, a starting point for judging a role. JobRoute joins the usage reports of a company’s AI tools to each role’s tasks and output measure and shows paid seats nobody is using, by role and team: see AI spend by role.