Getting Teams Onboard: A Practical Guide to Copilot Adoption

AI is everywhere right now, and it’s finally embedded in the tools your team actually uses.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is the headline act in this shift. It’s already promising to change the way people write, analyse, present, meet and collaborate. But before you start envisioning a more productive future, it’s worth getting real about one thing:

Copilot is only as powerful as your adoption plan.

The businesses that embrace this early and on purpose will see genuine return. The ones that treat Copilot as ‘just another licence’ probably won’t. And that starts with how you prepare.

Readiness is not just about licensing

It sounds obvious, but it’s easy to underestimate what Copilot actually needs behind the scenes. Getting it to ‘work’ isn’t the same as getting it to deliver value, and skipping the groundwork means swerving the best bits entirely.

Let’s start simple. Copilot needs two things to function:

A licensed employee
Access to your work data, including documents, emails, calendars, chats and more

That second requirement is where most of the prep kicks in.

Think about everything your team works with day-to-day. Is it stored in SharePoint or OneDrive? Or is it still stored on personal laptops, file servers, or stuck in inboxes? For Copilot to work effectively, your business data shouldn’t just be accessible – it should be secured, structured, and centrally visible.

That usually means a few things need tightening up:

Identity and access management: so the right people see the right things
Data governance: knowing where your business-critical content lives, and how it’s protected
Security: especially for sensitive or regulated material that Copilot may reference in its outputs

If you’ve already been investing in Microsoft 365, chances are you’ve made progress in some of these areas. But if Copilot is the first major use of those environments, now’s the time to check what shape it’s actually in.

The good news? These are the same habits that support broader security, collaboration and compliance. Even if you don’t go live with Copilot immediately, you’re still raising your IT standards by getting started.

Winning hearts and changing habits

AI hype is everywhere, but your team is human. They’ll bring their own assumptions, hopes and hesitations to anything new, and Copilot is no exception.

Some will be excited. Others sceptical. A few might worry about being replaced, or ‘monitored’, or not knowing how to use it ‘properly’.

To help people adjust, the technology needs to come with a clear message: This isn’t some faceless bot replacing your work. It’s a toolkit to help you do your work.

That only happens with trust, transparency, and training.

Start with use cases that matter. Talk about how Copilot will help in terms that people understand: reducing admin, improving presentations, saving that half-hour building a report from scratch.

Then show them. Even informal demos can spark curiosity, especially if they’re built around team-specific tasks or realistic examples. You might showcase how marketing can generate first drafts, how finance can clean up complex data, or how HR can prep onboarding guides faster.

And don’t underestimate social influence. Appointing a few ‘champions’ from across teams can help build confidence without always defaulting to IT. The more Copilot becomes part of everyday conversation, the less intimidating it feels.

Choosing your path to adoption

Every business is different, but most tend to fall into one of two camps when it comes to rolling out Copilot: keep it simple, or go structured.

1. The focused launch

If you’re a smaller team, or don’t have internal IT resource, then a narrow rollout can be a great starting point.

That might mean enabling Copilot for one department, such as sales or operations, and learning from how they use it. These early insights can guide tweaks for other teams later. You also get to train a smaller group, test documentation, and set realistic adoption goals.

By focusing on common apps like Word, Outlook and Excel, which most people are already familiar with, you give users a clear bridge from current ways of working to more efficient ones. It doesn’t need to be complicated.

2. The phased programme

If your organisation has multiple stakeholder groups, approval chains or compliance needs, a multi-stage plan might be safer.

Start with aligning leadership, ensuring decision-makers understand not just the cost, but the intent and expectations behind the rollout. From there, develop a layered approach:

Identify which data needs to be accessible
Set guardrails for different user roles
Build communications, training, and support plans for each team

In this model, Copilot adoption is less about speed, more about structure. You’ll have time to configure sensitivity labels, define acceptable use guidelines, and establish feedback loops before things go fully live.

What to expect after go-live

Turning Copilot on isn’t the same as people using it.

You can expect some people to jump straight in, and others to hesitate. That’s not a failure, it’s a feature of any digital change. Your job is to make those initial weeks count.

Look at usage reports. Are people opening the tools? Asking for help? Sharing what worked?

Encourage honesty. If people aren’t using it, find out why. Sometimes it’s as simple as unclear instructions, missing permissions or one bad first experience. Other times it’s deeper, like misunderstanding what Copilot is for.

Whatever the case, keep the conversation open. Run refresher sessions. Share quick wins. Celebrate early success stories. The more real-world validation you can provide, the more momentum you build.

Why all this effort ahead of time?

Here’s the thing: You don’t need a licence to start preparing. And honestly, you probably shouldn’t wait until you’ve got one.

Technical readiness, things like licensing, file storage, and security configuration, can be handled confidently as a pre-step. Meanwhile, cultural readiness, helping your people connect the dots between tool and value, takes time anyway.

Starting early means fewer surprises later. You’ll save time, avoid gaps in training or access, and prevent things grinding to a halt because ‘IT isn’t ready yet’. And the clearer your plan, the easier it is to get budget buy-in or stakeholder support when the time comes.

In short, preparation is a productivity improvement. It gets you there faster, with fewer roadblocks.

A quick recap before you go

If you’re thinking about Copilot, or even just watching others use it, now’s the time to get a plan in place. Quick licence switches might be tempting, but if you want impact, you need more than just features.

Think of it like this:

If your data isn’t in the right place, Copilot can’t help you find it.
If your people don’t know how to use it, productivity won’t improve.
If your goals aren’t clear, the results will be just as fuzzy.

But with a bit of planning, a bit of guidance, and a bit of practical support, Copilot can be the extra set of hands your team didn’t know they needed.