As your AI assistant for work, Microsoft 365 Copilot offers unique capabilities to supercharge productivity by reasoning across your enterprise data. However, as the transformational capability to leverage organizational information enables Copilot to surface valuable insights, it also highlights gaps in content governance—particularly overshared access.
In our Ignite breakout session "Prepare your data for Microsoft Copilot with new tools" we shared an example that resonated with many attendees: Imagine typing a query about your org structure into Copilot, only to have confidential details about an upcoming reorganization surface in the response—details you were never meant to see. This scenario underscores the potential challenge of using generative AI with overshared data.
To help you address this challenge, we’ve developed a new Microsoft deployment blueprint, Address oversharing in Microsoft 365 Copilot. This practical, phased approach provides a recommended path to help organizations tackle oversharing concerns, prepare their data for AI, and fully unlock the potential of Microsoft 365 Copilot.
The oversharing challenge
Oversharing happens when permissions are too broad and controls are too few, exposing data unnecessarily. This can lead to:
- Access to information beyond what the user needs for their role
- Inappropriate sharing of confidential or sensitive content.
- Outdated or irrelevant responses from AI, undermining its utility.
These issues aren’t always obvious but often stem from five common causes:
- Site privacy settings that grant access to everyone in the organization.
- Default sharing options set to “everyone,” bypassing more secure configurations.
- Broken permission inheritance, where site-level permissions don’t align with those at the file or folder level.
- Sharing with “everyone except external users” domain group
- Sites and files without sensitivity labels that enforce policies around how data can be accessed and shared.
In our conversations with customers we’ve found that these challenges resonate with organizations of all sizes, many of which are navigating complex data ecosystems with overlapping permissions and years of content governance debt.
This is where our new deployment blueprint comes in. It offers a structured methodology to address oversharing risks while preparing your environment for a secure, scalable Copilot deployment, including:
- An overview of the most common causes of internal oversharing in Microsoft SharePoint
- A recommended, staged approach to avoid oversharing in a Microsoft 365 Copilot deployment
- Recommended actions specific to E3 or E5 licenses at each stage
- Detailed guidance for using the tools in the SharePoint Admin Center, SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM), and Microsoft Purview to identify and mitigate oversharing and ongoing governance concerns.
Prepare your information for GenAI with the deployment blueprint
The deployment blueprint, Address oversharing in Microsoft 365 Copilot, is designed to take organizations through three key phases: Pilot, Deploy, and Operate. Each phase is flexible, allowing you to start small or scale quickly based on your needs.
- Phase 1 – the Pilot, is an optional phase intended for customers wanting to test out Copilot. In this phase Copilot is deployed to a small group of users within the organization and access limited to only low-risk content, allowing you to assess oversharing, test governance controls, and build a foundation for scaling Copilot securely.
- Phase 2 – Deploy (at scale), focuses on scaling Copilot access across your organization while implementing robust data protection measures. Many organizations may want to start at this phase and skip the Pilot phase entirely. In this phase you will identify oversharing risks, apply protections to sensitive data, and increase site privacy. By the end of this phase, Copilot will be securely deployed across your organization, with clear governance practices in place to minimize oversharing risks.
- Phase 3 – Operate, is about creating a culture of continuous improvement where governance practices are automated, monitored, and optimized over time. This results in a proactive governance framework that evolves with your organization to enhance the security of sensitive data and improve the accuracy and relevance of Copilot responses.
For organizations challenged by the scale of their data environments, this phased approach provides clarity and direction. Whether you start small with a pilot or jump straight to deployment, the blueprint helps you take actionable steps toward a more secure, productive future.
Your next steps
If you’re ready to tackle oversharing concerns and prepare your organization for Microsoft 365 Copilot deployment at scale, the deployment blueprint, Address oversharing in Microsoft 365 Copilot is your guide.
- Download the blueprint for step-by-step guidance on all three phases.
- Watch our Ignite session “Prepare your data for Microsoft Copilot with new tools” to dive deeper into these strategies.
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