Limits, Availability, and Troubleshooting
This page covers Autopilot's known limits, how it's turned on, what happens when the service is under load, how to export and resume conversations, and what to do when something goes wrong.
Availability
Autopilot is rolling out gradually and is enabled per tenant through the agent_panel_enabled feature flag. When the flag is on for your tenant, the Autopilot button appears in the bottom-right of the AI Employee builder and the ⌘E / Ctrl+E shortcut opens the panel.
If you don't see Autopilot. If the Autopilot button is missing and the keyboard shortcut does nothing, the feature isn't enabled for your tenant yet. Contact your administrator or Ema support to have it turned on.
Known limits
- Concurrent sessions are capped. Each tenant has a maximum number of sessions that can run at once. When you reach the cap, New chat is disabled and the welcome screen warns that you're at the limit. Close a running session from Recent chats to free a slot.
- One turn at a time per session. While Autopilot is working on a request in a session, you can't send another message to that session — the composer shows a Stop control instead of send. Wait for the turn to finish, or stop it.
- Files must be under 20 MB. Larger uploads are rejected. See Modes, feedback, and tips for the upload paths.
- Mode is fixed once a conversation starts. Choose Fast or Thorough before your first message; it can't change mid-conversation. Start a new chat to switch.
- Document and test runs are asynchronous. Generating a document or running a test set can take a while for complex requests. Autopilot streams progress and delivers the result when it's done.
- Output quality depends on your data. Answers and generated documents are only as good as the Knowledge bases and configuration behind them — keep your data current.
- Approval is required for destructive actions. Autopilot can't delete resources or deploy a workflow without your explicit approval. See Permissions and scoping.
Concurrent sessions
By default a tenant may have up to 5 concurrently running Autopilot sessions. This cap is configurable per tenant. A session counts against the cap while it is running or waiting on your reply; closing or finishing one frees a slot. When you reach the cap, New chat is disabled and the welcome screen warns that you're at the limit — close a running session from Recent chats to free a slot.
When Autopilot is under load
Autopilot shows a banner at the top of the panel when the service is busy. There are two levels:
| Level | Banner | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Heavy traffic | Autopilot is under heavy traffic — "Responses may be slower than usual." | You can keep working. Requests still go through; they may just be slower. |
| Temporarily unavailable | Autopilot is temporarily unavailable — "Too many requests right now — try again in a moment." | The composer is locked until the service recovers. Wait and retry. |
When the service can estimate a wait, the banner adds a retry hint such as "Try again in ~60s." The banner clears on its own once the service recovers — you don't need to reload the page.
This banner reflects the health of the Autopilot service across all tenants, not a problem with your account or your AI Employees. Your work isn't lost — pick the conversation back up once the banner clears.
Exporting a conversation
You can export a conversation for your records or to share it. Open the More actions menu (the three-dots button in the panel header) and choose:
- Export as HTML — a readable, self-contained copy of the conversation.
- Export as JSONL — a line-per-record format for programmatic use.
The file downloads with a name like ema-autopilot-<id>.html or ema-autopilot-<id>.jsonl, where <id> is the start of the session's identifier.
Resuming and managing sessions
Autopilot keeps your conversations so you can come back to them:
- Auto-resume. When you open the panel with no active conversation, Autopilot reopens your most recent session so you don't land on an empty screen.
- Recent chats. The Recent chats list (the clock-arrow button in the header, or the left rail in expanded mode) shows your past sessions grouped by day. Select one to resume it, or start a New chat.
- Refresh-safe. The active session is reflected in the page URL, so a browser refresh reopens the same conversation. If Autopilot was paused on a question or approval when you refreshed, the prompt is restored so you can still answer it.
- Drafts are kept. Text you've typed but not sent is preserved per session and survives a refresh. (File attachments are not kept as drafts.)
- Delete a chat. From More actions, choose Delete chat and confirm. Deletion is permanent — but tool actions Autopilot already completed (a created AI Employee, a deployed workflow) are not undone by deleting the conversation.
Troubleshooting
| Issue | What to do |
|---|---|
| Autopilot button is missing | The agent_panel_enabled flag isn't on for your tenant. Contact your administrator. |
| "Heavy traffic" banner | Requests still work, just slower. Continue, or wait a moment. |
| "Temporarily unavailable" banner | The service is at capacity and the composer is locked. Wait for the retry hint, then send again. The banner clears automatically. |
| Can't start a new chat | You're at the concurrent-session limit. Close a running session in Recent chats to free a slot. |
| Can't send a message | A turn is already running in this session. Wait for it to finish, or use Stop, then send. |
| File upload rejected | The file is over 20 MB. Remove it, attach a smaller file, and try again. |
| Session shows a warning icon in Recent chats | That session ended in an error. Start a new chat to continue. |
| A message failed to send | Autopilot shows a notification and restores your unsent text in the composer. Try sending again. |
| Autopilot seems stuck | A status message like "Thinking hard…" or "Working through this…" means it's still processing. Complex tasks — especially in Thorough mode — take longer. Use Stop if you want to cancel the turn. |
What's next
- Core actions — everything Autopilot can build and change.
- Permissions and scoping — what Autopilot can access and when it asks for approval.
- Modes, feedback, and tips — get better results, faster.