https://craigstanley.work/blog/ Copilot, agents, adoption and AI governance. Plain English, sources cited. en-GB Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://craigstanley.work/blog/the-rollout-is-not-the-project.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/the-rollout-is-not-the-project.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Assigning licences is the starting gun, not the finish line. The organisation, not the individual user, decides whether Copilot lands. Adoption Copilot https://craigstanley.work/blog/what-an-agent-actually-costs.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/what-an-agent-actually-costs.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Agents are billed in Copilot Credits, and the runtime you pick decides the bill. Most agent business cases are costed in the wrong unit. Agents Licensing https://craigstanley.work/blog/oversharing-is-the-whole-problem.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/oversharing-is-the-whole-problem.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Copilot made your permissions mess searchable, and the control most rollout plans name for it is being retired. Governance Copilot https://craigstanley.work/blog/two-regimes-one-policy.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/two-regimes-one-policy.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 The UK loosened automated decision-making this February while the EU tightened on a delayed timetable, so a single AI policy will be wrong somewhere. Governance https://craigstanley.work/blog/teaching-a-moving-target.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/teaching-a-moving-target.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Course-shaped training assumes the product stands still. It does not. Teach tasks and judgement, and treat the screenshots as perishable stock. Learning Adoption https://craigstanley.work/blog/stop-demoing-in-a-clean-tenant.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/stop-demoing-in-a-clean-tenant.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 A demo tenant has tidy permissions and a dozen documents. The gap between that and the customer's tenant is the whole of the work. Adoption Copilot https://craigstanley.work/blog/the-first-question.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/the-first-question.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 The opening question in an adoption workshop should have nothing to do with AI. Mine is: what work here gets done twice? Adoption Learning https://craigstanley.work/blog/who-owns-the-agent.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/who-owns-the-agent.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 An agent acts under someone's authority. Deciding whose is an organisational design question, and most agent programmes have not answered it. Agents Governance https://craigstanley.work/blog/agent-builder-or-copilot-studio.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/agent-builder-or-copilot-studio.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Start in Agent Builder. Move to Copilot Studio when you need Actions, another audience, or lifecycle controls. Copying across is cheap. Agents Copilot https://craigstanley.work/blog/the-pilot-that-proves-nothing.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/the-pilot-that-proves-nothing.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 A pilot that cannot produce a no is not a pilot. Hold a group back, agree the question first, then measure. Adoption https://craigstanley.work/blog/measuring-copilot-honestly.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/measuring-copilot-honestly.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 The dashboards report activity, the board asked about value, and honest measurement starts with saying which of the two you have. Adoption Governance https://craigstanley.work/blog/why-champions-networks-go-quiet.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/why-champions-networks-go-quiet.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Champions go quiet at about three months because they were given a title, no time, and no route to anyone who can fix things. Adoption https://craigstanley.work/blog/prompting-is-not-the-skill.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/prompting-is-not-the-skill.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Prompt training is the phonics of AI literacy: necessary, quickly exhausted, and not what people are getting wrong. Learning https://craigstanley.work/blog/the-agent-inventory-you-dont-have.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/the-agent-inventory-you-dont-have.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 The Agent 365 registry is available on every Microsoft 365 plan, your tenant already contains agents nobody commissioned, and almost nobody has looked. Agents Governance https://craigstanley.work/blog/bad-answers-are-not-the-model.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/bad-answers-are-not-the-model.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Nearly every poor Copilot answer traces to the wrong product, a control someone applied, or content nobody owns, not to the model. Copilot Adoption https://craigstanley.work/blog/e3-e5-e7-and-not-overbuying.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/e3-e5-e7-and-not-overbuying.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 E7 buys agent governance at scale rather than discounting E5, and parts of it already sit unused in licences you hold. Licensing https://craigstanley.work/blog/an-ai-policy-people-follow.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/an-ai-policy-people-follow.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 A policy people follow is two pages, leads with what they are allowed to do, and names a person to ask. Governance https://craigstanley.work/blog/copilot-and-meetings.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/copilot-and-meetings.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Recaps changed attendance and the meeting record before any organisation decided they should, and both changes need a deliberate answer. Adoption Copilot https://craigstanley.work/blog/change-management-with-no-launch-date.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/change-management-with-no-launch-date.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Classic change management assumes a go-live, Copilot has a release cadence instead, and the launch plan has to become a standing service. Adoption https://craigstanley.work/blog/buying-copilot-help.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/buying-copilot-help.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 The test of a Copilot engagement is what your organisation can do afterwards without the supplier, and several of the standard deliverables fail it. Adoption Governance https://craigstanley.work/blog/restricted-search-is-retiring.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/restricted-search-is-retiring.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 New enablement is blocked from 31 July 2026, and the replacement control behaves differently enough that swapping the name in your plan will not do. Field notes Governance https://craigstanley.work/blog/article-50-is-live.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/article-50-is-live.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 The EU AI Act's transparency duties took effect on 2 August 2026, they reach UK organisations whose output lands in the Union, and nobody owns them. Field notes Governance https://craigstanley.work/blog/say-credits-not-messages.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/say-credits-not-messages.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 The unit changed on 1 September 2025, and a business case counted in messages is pricing something that does not exist any more. Field notes Licensing https://craigstanley.work/blog/a-recap-is-not-a-decision-log.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/a-recap-is-not-a-decision-log.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 A recap records what was said. If nobody said the decision out loud, with an owner and a date, it is not in there. Field notes Adoption https://craigstanley.work/blog/e7-exists-read-the-small-print.html https://craigstanley.work/blog/e7-exists-read-the-small-print.html Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 E7 bundles E5, Copilot, Entra Suite and Agent 365 at $99 per user. Whether that is a saving depends on what you were going to buy anyway. Field notes Licensing