From Trial to Trusted: Securely Scaling Microsoft Copilot in the Enterprise

AI copilots and agents embedded in SaaS are rapidly reshaping how enterprises work. Business leaders and IT teams see them as a gateway to AI-driven efficiency for the enterprise, while security teams warn about data security concerns. Enterprise-grade AI copilots like Microsoft 365 Copilot, Dropbox’s Box AI, and GitHub Copilot empower employees to query vast datasets, generate documents, and write code at scale. As businesses race to integrate these AI assistants, the opportunity to enhance productivity is enormous—but so are the risks.

Security Concerns Stall Microsoft Copilot Adoption

According to Gartner, only 16% of organizations piloting Microsoft 365 Copilot reached production, primarily due to security concerns. Despite the urgency to adopt AI, security teams fear that copilots could expose sensitive data and create compliance risks.

One of the biggest challenges is unintended access to unstructured enterprise data. Without visibility into access entitlements, misconfigured file permissions, and redundant, obsolete, and trivial (ROT) data, organizations risk unintended data exposure through Copilot responses.

Consider a scenario where an HR team uploads new employee SSN, passport details, and bank information to a SharePoint site without access restrictions. Microsoft 365 Copilot, lacking governance controls, could surface this data in AI-generated responses, exposing it across the organization.

Similarly, a senior executive querying Copilot for financial forecasts might receive outdated data from an old file—a single bad decision based on misinformation could cost millions. This poor AI efficacy risk scenario explains why most organizations struggle to move beyond the pilot phase in AI projects, fearing data breaches, financial loss, compliance violations and reputational damage.

The FOMO Dilemma: Delays vs. Competitive Pressure

As security teams grapple with these risks, Copilot deployments stall, and business leaders experience FOMO. Competitors who securely deploy Microsoft Copilot gain a productivity edge, while others hesitate, torn between AI-driven efficiency and protecting sensitive enterprise data.

So, how can enterprises securely scale Microsoft Copilot adoption? The answer lies in proactive data security and governance, preventing unintended access, improving AI efficacy, and automated remediation—ensuring Copilot acts as a trusted enabler, not a security liability.

How Securiti Enables Safe Use of Microsoft 365 Copilot

Securiti provides a comprehensive Microsoft 365 Copilot dashboard designed to proactively identify and address critical data security risks. The dashboard delivers actionable insights, such as identifying users with access to sensitive sites/files and detecting sites that are broadly accessible across the organization. By leveraging these insights, organizations can address unintended access issues, prioritize remediation efforts and enable a secure and controlled Copilot rollout.

Let’s deep dive into the breadth of capabilities offered by the Securiti platform to help you securely adopt Copilot in your organization.

Preventing Unintended Access to Data

Microsoft 365 Copilot can unintentionally surface sensitive information if underlying access entitlements are misconfigured. To ensure safe and quick adoption, organizations must detect risky access permissions, restrict excessive sensitive data exposure, and enforce access governance policies proactively.

Step 1: Identifying Unintended Access (Without Scanning Data)

Using the Data Command Graph, Securiti provides granular visibility into who has access to which sites and files. For example, you can run a query to identify Finance sites accessible by non-Finance users. These policies help uncover potential access entitlements, even if they are not outright misconfigurations—that could lead to unintended data exposure.

Step 2: Detecting Sensitive Data Exposure

Once broad access is mapped, the next step is to scan for sites containing sensitive data, such as salary and payroll information, customer data, or proprietary business records. This helps prioritize access governance for high-risk sites, ensuring that sensitive data is only accessible to authorized users.

Step 3: Automated Labeling and Restricting AI Access

To further secure data, Securiti integrates with Microsoft Purview to automatically apply sensitivity labels to unstructured data with high accuracy and precision. Since Microsoft Copilot respects these labels, Security teams can prevent Copilot from accessing sensitive files and sites until site owners review and correct access entitlements. These site-level restrictions enable teams to turn on Copilot quickly without worrying about bits and bytes of data. It also ensures only authorized sites are accessible by Copilot users, following the principle of least privilege.

For instance, payroll-related files can be labeled and excluded from Copilot access until security measures are enforced.

By implementing these proactive measures, organizations can prevent unintended data access, enhance security posture, and safely enable AI copilots in their SaaS environments.

Optimizing AI Efficacy in Copilot Responses

Redundant, obsolete, and trivial (ROT) data in legacy SharePoint sites compromises Copilot’s response accuracy and efficacy. When Copilot accesses this outdated information, it can generate misleading outputs, increasing the risk of misinformation, privacy violations, and sensitive data exposure. For example, HR teams may unknowingly share outdated benefits policies with employees due to the presence of stale data in HR sites.

Securiti automatically detects duplicate, stale, and obsolete data in SharePoint environments using the Data Command Graph powered by AI. Security teams can configure graph rules to identify obsolete files based on file content, age, access patterns, modification history, and ownership.

Additionally, Securiti’s labeling policies automatically label these files, ensuring that Microsoft Copilot excludes them from responses. This process improves AI efficacy and performance, preventing Copilot from surfacing outdated or irrelevant information.

Auto-Remediating Access Misconfigurations

Securiti automates the remediation process, helping security teams quickly resolve access entitlement issues and minimize ROT data. By identifying and notifying site and file owners of misconfigured access permissions, Securiti enables swift resolution without disrupting business operations.

With targeted remediation policies, organizations can prioritize critical sites and sensitive data, ensuring a focused and manageable approach. Seamless integration with ticketing and messaging platforms allows teams to incorporate remediation into their existing workflows, enhancing security while maintaining productivity.