Copilot for Microsoft 365 Maturity Model - How to level up your organization with AI ✨

Since the launch of Copilot for M365 almost 9 months ago, I've been working with a wide variety of organizations in various fields to implement Copilot. I've seen many companies in many different stages and levels of maturity with AI, and seeing them grow with it has been great to see.🏗️ I built up this maturity model to break down the 3 most usual levels I've seen and coached organizations towards.

1️⃣ Initial

This is where many organizations were in the start of November to December last year. Someone bought the licenses for Copilot, assigned them to a small number of users and started to mess around with it. At this level, with little to no wider coordination, the only people benefitting from Copilot are power users, who already utilized Generative AI before. Normal everyday users might try Copilot once, and then disregard it due to not knowing how to use it effectively. This is what we want to get out of ASAP! 📢

2️⃣ Managed

This is the level most organizations can achieve with a few months of dedicated work with Copilot. Here users have been trained on how Copilot for M365 is used in various applications, and they start to discover specific use cases in their work that benefit from Generative AI. We start to see clear ROI in these cases, where the usage of Copilot begins to widen beyond the early adopters. Usually, we also start looking at quick wins with extendibility, like enabling 3rd party ISV Plugins and getting citizen developers acquainted with Copilot Studio! 🤖

3️⃣ Defined

This is a level that many organizations are still working towards, but I've already worked with a couple who have reached it after diligent work from various teams in the company. Here Copilot usage and training has become a normal part of the role, being more about "How do I utilize Copilot in my role?" rather than "How do I use Copilot in this app?". I've seen business processes get completely overhauled with Copilot, and that's where we start to see those 5x-10x time savings (yes, I've seen them first hand, they exist!).Usually we start to go beyond Copilot for M365 here, looking at building our own Copilots, especially Declarative and Custom Engine Copilots in the future! 📌

Some things to keep in mind

All this change doesn't happen in a week - but rather after months of hard work from all sides of the organization. Getting the organization to level 300 isn't an IT project, but rather a transformation throughout the whole organization. I will also remember to underline that extendibility is the number one thing you should be looking at in the end of 2024, since that is how you get Copilot into your business processes. Get Copilot for everyone, and get your citizen developers onboarded to Copilot Studio, that's how real business problems get solved.