If you’ve purchased Copilot, or are seriously considering it, you might be wondering: Now what?
Many businesses are excited about AI but unsure how to turn it on, configure it safely, and begin seeing results. And that’s understandable. Copilot is powerful, but launching it without a plan can lead to confusion, underuse, or even risk. Good news: Getting started doesn’t have to be overwhelming.
In this post, we provide a practical, non-technical guide to setting up Copilot in your business, from licensing to rollout to early wins.
Step 1: Make Sure You’re Licensed
Before anything else, ensure your business has the correct Microsoft 365 license. To access Microsoft Copilot, you need:
- Microsoft 365 E3 or E5, or Business Standard/Premium, and
- A Copilot add-on license (which is purchased separately)
Need help verifying this? Yeo & Yeo Technology can walk you through licensing requirements and help you avoid overpaying or misconfiguring your environment.
Step 2: Assess Your Data and Access
Copilot’s strength lies in its ability to access company data to generate intelligent responses. However, data access needs to be clean and intentional. Before you enable it:
- Audit who can access what in Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Outlook.
- Identify outdated or overly permissive sharing settings.
- Decide which groups or departments should get Copilot first.
- Pro tip: Clean up first, then turn on. Not the other way around.
Step 3: Train Your Team
Copilot is only as effective as the people using it. We recommend launching with short internal training sessions that cover:
- How to use Copilot inside each Microsoft app
- What kinds of questions to ask
- How to review and edit AI-generated content
- What not to do (e.g., don’t share sensitive content generated from Copilot externally)
- Yeo & Yeo Technology provides both live and on-demand training sessions tailored to your team.
Step 4: Start with a Pilot Group
Don’t roll it out to your whole company at once. Instead, start with a pilot group from different departments, such as HR, finance, marketing, and operations. Why? Because you’ll:
- Get feedback on usability and access issues
- Collect real examples of how Copilot improves workflows
- Build internal “Copilot champions” to support broader adoption
- These pilot users will help identify the most valuable use cases to scale across your organization.
Step 5: Track Results and Refine
Once Copilot is live, don’t “set it and forget it.” Build a simple feedback loop:
- What’s working?
- Where are users getting stuck?
- Are there security or governance questions that need to be addressed?
Gathering these insights early will help you roll it out more effectively across the company, and get greater ROI from your AI investment.
Bonus: Start with Easy Wins
Here are a few simple, high-impact tasks to introduce Copilot:
- Drafting customer follow-up emails in Outlook
- Summarizing last week’s meetings in Teams
- Creating a sales pitch deck from a case study in PowerPoint
- Analyzing monthly revenue numbers in Excel
- Drafting job descriptions in Word
These use cases show value quickly and help build confidence across your team.
Want a Live Demo?
You’re invited to a 30-minute live webinar where we’ll walk through real-world use cases and even build a Copilot Agent live.
Live Webinar: How to Build Copilot Agents to Automate Your Business
Tuesday, September 9
11:00 – 11:30 a.m. EST
Hosted by Yeo & Yeo Technology
Whether you’re just getting started or already testing Copilot, this session will show you how to use it to reduce manual work and automate key processes.
Final Thought
Copilot isn’t just for tech-savvy companies; it’s for any business that wants to save time, reduce repetitive tasks, and empower their teams. The sooner you start, the sooner you benefit. If you’re unsure how to take that first step, we’re here to help you launch safely, securely, and strategically.