Innovation Heroes: How to unlock ROI with Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Chat

“The shadow AI problem is real,” Brooke Pierantoni said. “If you don’t give employees an approved tool, they’ll find one.”

These days, enterprises are spending serious money on AI. But while tools such as Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Chat are deployed at the majority of the Fortune 500, adoption is still uneven — and in some cases, minimal.

The real story of enterprise AI isn’t who bought the licenses. It’s who did the work to make sure those licenses actually get used.

And that’s exactly what we explored in the latest episode of Innovation Heroes, a podcast from SHI. As Chief of Staff to the CIO, Pierantoni helped SHI complete our Copilot rollout in just six months — while achieving $1.4 million in monthly productivity gains. Her insights reveal why data governance, not AI prompts, is the real engine of ROI.

1. AI ROI starts with data quality, not deployment.

Organizations assume the hard part is choosing the right AI tool. But as Pierantoni explained, the bigger challenge is preventing AI from surfacing data it shouldn’t.

“Turning on Copilot really isn’t flipping a switch,” she said. “A nightmare scenario we wanted to avoid was someone asking Copilot a question and suddenly seeing salary data or financial reports they should’ve never had access to.”

The culprit isn’t Copilot — it’s permissions.

“Copilot will amplify whatever state your data is in,” Pierantoni said. “So, you really want to make sure it’s clean before you hit go.”

That meant data classification, privacy labeling, and adopting Microsoft Purview. Choosing Purview early helped SHI tighten link sharing, enforce permissions, and build trust in the system before rollout — work many organizations underestimate.

2. Copilot adoption isn’t technical. It’s behavioral.

Even the strongest technical implementation won’t drive ROI if employees don’t use the tool. SHI discovered early that adoption can’t be passive.

“We learned that turning on Copilot and hoping for it to magically work and gain adoption doesn’t happen,” Pierantoni said.

The first barrier wasn’t skill — it was psychology. “Users are hungry for AI, but they’re also hesitant,” she said. This required SHI to build a platform-first enablement model built around real human behavior, rather than IT checklists. The approach included:

• Mandatory onboarding sessions.
• Role-specific training.
• A train-the-trainer model.
• Identifying internal “power users” to serve as advocates.
• Everyday reinforcement through prompts and use-case sharing.

The goal wasn’t just to teach employees how Copilot works, but to help them see where it belongs in their workflow.

3. AI-driven productivity gains are real, but they must be credible.

SHI’s productivity gains came from “AI-assisted hours” — a metric combining Copilot usage data with conservative, validated time-saving assumptions.

“In July, we saw roughly 6,000 assisted hours,” Pierantoni said. “By August, that jumped to 17,000 hours, which is around $1.4 million in productivity gains.”

She’s quick to note these aren’t audited financials — they’re directional indicators.

“Credibility matters,” she said. “We’re transparent that the baseline methodology is directional.”

The next evolution: measuring workflow transformation, not just individual task time saved.

The final word.

Pierantoni’s biggest warning for organizations? Don’t overestimate your readiness.

“Just because your data lives in Microsoft 365 doesn’t mean it’s clean, classified, or properly permissioned,” she said.

The organizations winning with AI are the ones willing to do the unglamorous preparation work — permissions, governance, data hygiene, and training. AI itself is the easy part. The hard part is creating the environment where it can succeed.

This episode of Innovation Heroes was sponsored by Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Chat. 

NEXT STEPS

Looking to increase AI adoption while maintaining strict data governance? Listen to the full conversation here to learn how our team can help you increase productivity gains and turn your AI investment into a measurable win.

You can also find episodes of the Innovation Heroes podcast on SHI’s Resource Hub, Spotify, and other major podcast platforms, as well as on YouTube in video format.

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