Governance as an Accelerator: How to Drive AI Adoption Without the Chaos

In Episode 24 of the Guardians of M365 Governance monthly webcast, Joy Apple and Christian Buckley welcomed guest Jason Amgar, CTO and co-owner of AIMPACT Consulting, and a Microsoft Copilot Governance & Adoption Expert.

And honestly? It was one of those conversations where you realize we’re all living through the same IT nightmare-turned-opportunity. You know the one: C-suite gets excited about shiny new AI tools, buys licenses for everyone, IT panics, users get confused, and suddenly you’re living through the Delve debacle all over again. (Or as Joy aptly calls it: the “Delve Debacle” – double D, baby.)

The Tortoise Wins This Race

Jason dropped a line that should be printed on every IT department’s wall: “Governance isn’t about slowing down – it’s about creating guardrails that can scale innovation safely.”

Think of it like this: if your environment is the Wild West, users either go crazy and create chaos, or they get scared when something breaks and never touch the tool again. Neither scenario is what you want when you’ve just invested in Copilot licenses.

The magic happens when you create just enough structure – guardrails, not roadblocks – so people can innovate without accidentally sharing that 2012 file that absolutely should not see the light of day.

The Free Version is Your Friend

Here’s Jason’s golden nugget of wisdom: Don’t buy full Copilot licenses for everyone right away. (Yes, you heard that right.)

Microsoft won’t tell you this, but start with the free web-grounded version. Get people trained. Get them excited. Let them learn the basics before you throw them into the deep end of the licensed, work-grounded version that connects to your entire tenant.

It’s like teaching someone to drive in a parking lot before handing them the keys to a Ferrari on the Autobahn. Sure, both are driving, but one is significantly less likely to end in disaster.

IT Doesn’t Want Your Adoption Job

And please – for the love of all things Microsoft – don’t make IT responsible for adoption. They’ll hate you. They’ll say things about you behind your back. They didn’t sign up for change management; they signed up to keep systems running.

Give IT the governance responsibility (they’re great at that), but create a proper adoption team that includes champions from different departments. Find the people who get genuinely excited about new tools and will spread that enthusiasm organically.

Department by Department, Not All at Once

Jason’s approach? Start small. Pick one department – preferably not based on ROI potential, but on user enthusiasm. Look at usage metrics. Find the team already playing with ChatGPT on the side. Those are your early adopters, your champions, your proof of concept.

Clean up their environment, lock down Copilot to only see what they need, train them properly, and let them become your success story. Then replicate. Then scale.

The Human-First Approach

The theme that kept coming up? Trust your people. Involve them. Make them part of the process.

Office hours. Champion groups. Feedback loops. When people feel ownership, they follow the rules. When they’re just told what to do without understanding why, they rebel or work around you.

And one more thing: if you’re a C-level executive pushing this initiative, be present. Show up to those office hours. Be the guiding light, not the person who throws a mandate over the wall and disappears.

Because at the end of the day, as Jason reminded us: this is a marathon, not a sprint. We’re still in the infancy of AI adoption. Slow and steady wins this race.

Just ask the tortoise.

Ready to implement proper AI agent governance? Contact me, Ragnar Heil, for a consultation on Microsoft Purview and Agent 365 deployment strategies tailored to your organization’s needs. Find my calendar here at our HanseVision Governance Landing Page. 

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