McKinsey research found that employees are already using AI approximately three times more than their leaders realize. The AI strategy you are carefully drafting is running laps behind the behavior already happening. People aren’t waiting for the policy document.
ISACA’s 2025 analysis puts the average additional cost of a shadow AI-related data incident at over $650,000. That is an expensive way to find out your governance framework was purely aspirational.
Three types of organizations, one getting it right
Steve Knutson, Director of Stratos Technology Partners, has spotted a pattern. Most organizations are either stuck in “pilot purgatory” or deploying tools without a clear purpose. The winners identified a specific business problem first, then asked how AI could solve it.
The Quick Win: Meeting Recaps
Meeting recaps work immediately for everyone and require almost no governance complexity. Microsoft data documents time savings ranging from 30 minutes to 4 additional productive hours per user, per day. Start there. Build the habit. Then expand.
The governance wake-up call nobody asked for
Most organizations know they have a SharePoint permissions problem. For years, it was a “mild” inconvenience. Copilot changed that calculation. Because it sees everything a user can see, sloppy permissions are now a liability at scale.
The Catalyst: AI has become the governance driver that years of internal memos failed to be. “We need to clean up permissions before deploying Copilot” is a considerably easier pitch than “we should probably sort out SharePoint.”
The stat worth pinning to every leadership wall
A Writer 2025 enterprise AI report found that enterprises without a formal AI strategy report only 37% success in adoption. With a strategy? 80%.
Prosci research confirms that 38% of challenges stem from insufficient training. Most organizations invest heavily in licenses and lightly in people. Shelfware is expensive and entirely avoidable.
What’s Inside the White Paper:
- • ROI Realities: Where AI is actually delivering value in Microsoft 365.
- • The Champion Model: How to build an internal support structure that sticks.
- • The AI Checklist: Practical steps to turn strategy into concrete action.
Stop chasing the shadows of AI adoption.
Build a foundation that turns technology into transformation.
Featuring insights from Steve Knutson of Stratos Technology Partners, Microsoft Regional Director.
Jordan Washington
Regional Marketing Manager
