Guidance & governance
The traps, red lines and controls every awarding organisation should understand before rolling out Copilot and Power Platform AI.
Disclaimer: Always follow your organisation's internal guidance and policies regarding AI usage. The suggestions in this guide have been created to the best of accuracy, but Microsoft licensing, pricing and feature availability change frequently — treat them as a planning baseline, not a procurement quote.
Recommended first pilots
Low-risk, high-value starting points for a UK AO.
1
Centre query intake without AI
- Tier:
- Tier 0 / Tier 2
- Where:
- Forms, Lists, Teams, Power Automate
- Users:
- Customer support, operations
- Value:
- Reduces inbox chasing and creates a shared record
- AI / credits:
- No / No
- Risk:
- Low
Why start here: It proves automation value without AI licensing complexity
2
Copilot Chat for drafting and summarising
- Tier:
- Tier 0
- Where:
- Copilot Chat, Pages, Notebooks
- Users:
- General staff
- Value:
- Faster drafting, meeting prep and plain-English rewrites
- AI / credits:
- Yes / Usually no
- Risk:
- Low to medium
Why start here: It builds AI literacy before more complex tools are introduced
3
Copilot in Word for policy drafting
- Tier:
- Tier 1
- Where:
- Word
- Users:
- Policy, quality, product teams
- Value:
- Faster first drafts and clearer wording
- AI / credits:
- Yes / Usually no
- Risk:
- Medium to high
Why start here: Strong productivity gain, but needs review discipline
4
Internal policy assistant agent
- Tier:
- Tier 1A
- Where:
- Copilot Chat / Agent Builder / Teams
- Users:
- Customer support, product, quality
- Value:
- Helps staff find approved answers quickly
- AI / credits:
- Yes / Depends on licensing and grounding
- Risk:
- Medium
Why start here: Good agent pilot if restricted to approved published policy
5
AI-assisted centre email triage
- Tier:
- Tier 3
- Where:
- Power Automate
- Users:
- Customer support, operations
- Value:
- Flags topic, urgency and likely team owner
- AI / credits:
- Yes / Yes
- Risk:
- Medium
Why start here: Useful if the AO accepts credit cost and keeps human review
AO red lines
AI should not independently determine
- Marks
- Grades
- Results
- Reasonable adjustments
- Malpractice findings
- Complaints outcomes
- Appeals outcomes
- Centre approval
- Centre sanctions
- Employee recruitment decisions
- Employee disciplinary decisions
- Release of live assessment material
AI can support these areas by
- Finding relevant policy
- Summarising evidence
- Drafting neutral communications
- Checking completeness
- Generating checklists
- Preparing meeting packs
- Flagging risks for human review
AI credit and premium licensing traps
| Trap | What users assume | Reality |
|---|---|---|
| AI in Power Automate is included | “I have Power Automate, so the AI step should run” | AI Builder or Copilot Credits may be required |
| Premium connectors are included | “It connects to Microsoft apps, so it must be free” | Dataverse, SQL, custom connectors and some business systems may need premium licences |
| Personal agents are free for everything | “I can create an agent, so I can connect it to all work knowledge” | Work-data grounding and sharing may be metered or admin-controlled |
| Power BI Copilot is included with Pro | “I have Power BI Pro, so I get Copilot” | Copilot in Power BI requires suitable paid Fabric or Power BI capacity |
| Claude is a personal preference | “I should be able to pick Claude because I pay for Copilot” | Admin and tenant settings control provider availability |
| Copilot permissions solve everything | “Copilot respects permissions, so we are safe” | If permissions are already too broad, Copilot can expose that weakness |
Model access — why users may not see Claude
Users may see options such as Auto Quick response Think deeper. These are response or reasoning modes, not always a direct choice of model provider.
Access to Claude or other non-Microsoft/OpenAI models depends on:
- Whether Microsoft has enabled the feature in that product surface
- Whether the tenant is in a supported region
- Whether the Microsoft 365 admin has enabled the relevant AI provider setting
- Whether the user has the right Copilot licence
- Whether the feature has reached that tenant
For UK/EU/EFTA tenants, Anthropic/Claude support in some Microsoft 365 Copilot experiences may require admin enablement. Some other provider features shown in release notes or webinars may be US-only or not yet available in UK tenants.
Where the action happens
| User need | Where they do it | Product or feature |
|---|---|---|
| Ask questions, summarise, draft from uploaded files | Copilot Chat | Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat |
| Work over a focused bundle of files, chats, pages and links | Copilot Notebooks | Copilot Notebooks |
| Turn AI output into an editable working artefact | Copilot Pages | Copilot Pages / Loop |
| Draft or edit a document | Word | Copilot in Word |
| Analyse or reshape a spreadsheet | Excel | Copilot in Excel |
| Create slides | PowerPoint | Copilot in PowerPoint |
| Summarise email threads or draft replies | Outlook | Copilot in Outlook |
| Summarise meetings and actions | Teams | Copilot in Teams |
| Create a reusable personal or team helper | Copilot Chat / Agent Builder | Personal or team agents |
| Automate handoffs between Microsoft apps | Power Automate | Cloud flows with standard connectors |
| Use AI inside a flow | Power Automate | AI Builder or prompt actions using credits |
| Build a business app | Power Apps | Canvas apps, model-driven apps, Dataverse |
| Build a chatbot or action-taking agent | Copilot Studio | Copilot Studio agents |
| Share dashboards | Power BI | Power BI Pro or higher |
| Use Copilot in Power BI | Power BI / Fabric | Requires suitable paid Fabric or Power BI capacity |
Suggested governance model
| Area | Minimum control |
|---|---|
| Copilot Chat | Usage policy, data classification guidance, sensitive-data rules |
| Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps | Licence assignment criteria, training, review expectations |
| Copilot Notebooks and Pages | Sharing rules, source-file permission guidance |
| Personal agents | Owner, purpose, scope and review date |
| Shared internal agents | Approval process, knowledge-source register, permissions review |
| Copilot Studio agents | Formal design, testing, monitoring, escalation and retirement process |
| Power Automate flows | Named owner, documentation, environment policy and DLP rules |
| AI Builder / Copilot Credits | Budget owner, consumption monitoring and pre-approval for pilots |
| Premium connectors | IT approval and security review |
| External-facing agents | Content boundary, disclaimers, handoff route and monitoring |
Recommended staff allocation
| Staff group | Recommended tier |
|---|---|
| General staff | Tier 0 |
| Administrators | Tier 0 and Tier 2 |
| Customer support | Tier 0, Tier 1 for leads, Tier 2 for processes |
| Product and qualification teams | Tier 0, Tier 1 and selected Tier 1A |
| Policy and quality teams | Tier 1 and selected Tier 1A |
| Analysts | Tier 1, Power BI Pro and selected Tier 4 |
| Power Platform makers | Tier 2, Tier 3 and Tier 4 |
| IT and security | Tier 4, Tier 5 and Tier 6 |
| Senior leaders | Tier 1 with governance dashboards |
Sources to verify
Licensing and availability change frequently — check these before committing budget.