The 5 key steps to safely prepare for Microsoft Copilot

Is your business Copilot-ready? In a bid to take advantage of the advanced productivity and automation benefits that Microsoft Copilot offers, businesses have rushed the implementation of Copilot without considering wider repercussions, which might after the security of their infrastructure.

Without taking the necessary preparation steps, businesses weaken their security posture, putting their data and systems at risk of a cyber-attack. Before you dive into using the tool, follow our quick steps to ensure you create a safe environment for using AI technology.

The importance of preparing for AI

Microsoft Copilot respects any current security policies and controls you have in place, with your existing permissions determining which content and files are relevant to share with each employee. So, before you integrate Copilot with your apps and systems, it’s crucial that you ensure your security practices are in place and up to date.

By missing out fundamental security principles and content management practices, such as multi-factor authentication, selectivity labelling and access permissions, you could open your business and data up to internal and external threats.

5 key preparation steps to ensure a safe Copilot implementation: 

1.  Make sure you have all the foundations in place 

While Copilot is free to use on the web, to get the full integrated experience you’ll need to have a Microsoft 365 or Dynamics 365 license. Since the AI solution works within Microsoft’s apps, you’ll need to have these set up with desktop settings turned on to take advantage of its full potential.

2.  Secure & classify files with Microsoft Purview 

Make sure any sensitive data is secure and classified to ensure it’s always in safe hands. Within Microsoft Purview, you can use sensitivity labels to classify and protect data within your Microsoft ecosystem, while Purview’s Information Protection can be set up to automatically classify a document.

3.  Set up permissions and content management practices 

A key internal security vulnerability is oversharing content due to incorrect team and user permissions being in place. By taking a ‘just enough access’ approach to your SharePoint permissions, you can ensure employees only have access to data and files that are relevant to their department or role.

You can use SharePoint Advanced Management to help govern this. The system will provide reports that identifies any data or file sharing and where your sensitive data is located within your Microsoft ecosystem. Plus, Microsoft Entra ID can help IT teams manage user access on a personal or department basis.

4.  Clean up your SharePoint folders

Part of the oversharing problem within organisations is that they don’t have a clear filing system in place. Due to this, it’s a good idea to have a clean up of your folders and outdated files, ensuring everything follows a clear filing structure that makes it easier for IT teams to manage user permissions.

Microsoft Purview’s Data Lifecycle feature is a great tool to help with this. The system can be set up with a retention policy to help remove outdated data from your folders.

5.  Train up your teams 

Once your systems are prepped for Copilot, it’s important to make sure your teams are too. Microsoft recommends creating a centre of excellence forum, where employees can ask questions and share tips and experiences while they use Copilot. On top of this, you can also provide training around writing effective prompts and checking Copilot’s responses, with business experts on hand to support with any queries.

Are you ready for Microsoft Copilot?

Whether you’re looking to rollout Copilot across your business, or just one of your departments, we can help you assess what preparation steps you need to take to ensure you’re ready for implementation. Get in touch with our team to set up a detailed Copilot readiness assessment.