Microsoft 365 Copilot: A Step-by-Step Guide to Secure AI Adoption

"Companies that scale successfully see three times the return on their AI investments." 

What’s Inside

Purchasing Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses is only the beginning. To support secure and sustainable adoption, organizations need to prepare and organize their data, strengthen access controls, and establish governance and information management processes that can scale over time. 

• Three AI adoption best practices: A structured approach to preparing your data, securing your data, and optimizing your operations. 
• Data readiness checklist: Steps to consolidate business-critical content, assess your data landscape, remove redundant, obsolete, or trivial data, and improve classification. 
• Security and permissions guidance: Methods for identifying sensitive and overshared data, fixing permissions issues, applying least-privilege access, enforcing policies, and monitoring security controls. 
• Scalable governance framework:  for establishing a management framework, automating content lifecycle management, and scheduling regular access reviews and content renewals.

What You’ll Learn

• Prepare Microsoft 365 data to support more reliable and relevant Copilot responses. 
• Identify sensitive and overshared content, address risky permissions, and maintain appropriate access controls. 
• Implement governance and information lifecycle practices that keep content secure, useful, and manageable as Copilot adoption expands. 
• Use AvePoint solutions to support migration, information management, security, policy enforcement, and automated governance across Microsoft 365.

Build a Secure and Scalable Foundation for AI Adoption

Move from license deployment to a more deliberate Microsoft 365 Copilot strategy. Download AvePoint’s guide to improve data quality, reduce access risks, automate governance, and support secure, scalable AI adoption.

Frequently Asked Questions 

• How do I prepare my orgnization for Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption?  

  To prepare for Microsoft 365 Copilot, follow three best practices: Prepare your data, secure your data and optimize your operations. Move business-critical content into Microsoft 365, remove redundant, obsolete and trivial (ROT) data, and classify content with metadata and labels. Fix risky permissions next, then set up governance and lifecycle policies, so Copilot stays accurate and secure as you scale AI.

• Why is data security important for Microsoft 365 Copilot?  

  Microsoft 365 Copilot can access any data that a user has permission to see. That means overshared or poorly protected content can show up in its answers. Run a risk assessment to find sensitive data, such as unprotected PII or anonymous sharing links. Then apply least-privilege access. AvePoint Insights finds and prioritizes permission issues, and AvePoint Policies enforces security rules automatically and reverts out-of-policy changes.  

• How does AvePoint help with Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption?  

  AvePoint helps organizations adopt Microsoft 365 Copilot securely by preparing their data, fixing risky permissions, and automating governance. With the AvePoint Confidence Platform, teams can build a strong data foundation and scale AI without losing security or compliance.