Navigating the Future of Work: Unveiling the Potential and Preparing for Microsoft 365 Copilot

After spending a week at M365 conference hearing all about Copilot and the “Future of Work” I returned excited about the possibilities but cautious about its deployment in the wild.  The concept of AI taking care of basic document creation and leaving users to refine and complete is a new way to work, but like most things, is it too good to be true?

At first glance so many things come straight to the surface, how is security enforced? How is compliance handled?  What auditing is performed?  How do we make sure the most recent and most accurate content is being used?

Will Copilot start to expose security issues like overexposed sensitive data and user access to the content they were never supposed to see?  Software is good at doing what it is told, AI is not going to protect organizations from this kind of data leak internally.  Is Copilot going to audit or control the questions that can be asked of it?   Will there be the ability to block potentially non-compliant activities before they are executed?

The adage Garbage in equals garbage out seems to become even more true here.  Organizations with little to no information management principles may struggle to get the right results with Copilot.  Classification and labeling will most likely become drivers in this new world.  A document labeled as “Project XYZ” should carry more weight than finding the words “Project XYZ” buried in some text.   

Copilot is in private preview so many of these answers are unknown at this point but even with all these unknowns there are ways for organizations to start preparing for Copilot and get their house in order along the way. 

Secure you content

Organizations need to do a security checkup across their tenant.  For those that removed Delve, it exposed all the security flaws we knew existed but did not know how to remediate. 

• End users should check their shared links,
• Team and site owner needs to check their permissions
• IT needs to protect content with things like sensitivity labels and retention
• Identify and remediate inactive sites and Teams

Manage your content

Information Management principles become even more important now.  For Copilot to be effective understanding authoritative content, final versions, most recent policies, and other important company information is important.  Knowing where sensitive data resides, where the organization’s policies and procures exist, and what the retention and records policies are, helps establish authoritative content. 

Administrators need to start implementing Information management principles like:

• Data Inventories – Start by taking an inventory of your organization’s data. Including productivity documents and other data assets.
• Data Classification – Categorize data based on its content and sensitivity
• Data Labeling – Assign clear and consistent labels to your data, making it easily identifiable and findable for users and AI.
• Data Quality – Review and update the label process for accuracy and consistency.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is ready to transform the way we work, offering significant improvements in productivity, efficiency, and collaboration. To fully embrace the potential of this AI-enhanced tool, organizations must first ensure their data is secured and accurately identified, labeled, and organized. By taking a proactive approach to Information Management, businesses can optimize their use of Copilot and realize the benefits of this technology.