Deployment & Adoption
Weight: 5 of 100 — the smallest area.
Every other area on this report asks whether Copilot would be safe to turn on. This one asks whether it is actually being used.
It carries the least weight deliberately. Low adoption is a commercial problem, not a security one — nobody is at risk because a licence is sitting idle. But it is worth measuring, because unused Copilot licences are one of the easiest ways to waste a significant amount of money without noticing.
This area needs a live Copilot licence to measure. Usage data only exists once Copilot is in use, so these two checks count only toward your Full score and are excluded from the Readiness score entirely. An organisation evaluating Copilot is not penalised for having no usage data yet.
Copilot seats activated
What this checks — whether the Copilot licences purchased have been assigned to people.
Why it matters — an assigned seat is the difference between a licence being available and a licence being paid for. Seats bought and never handed out are pure waste, and it happens more often than you would expect — particularly where a block of licences was purchased ahead of a rollout that then slipped.
What “ready” looks like — at least one purchased seat assigned to a user.
How to fix it — assign licences in the Microsoft 365 admin centre under Users → Active users. If seats were bought for a rollout that has not happened, this is the prompt to either start it or reduce the subscription at renewal.
Microsoft’s guidance — Set up Microsoft 365 Copilot
Active Copilot usage
What this checks — how many people with a Copilot licence have actually used it in the last 30 days, as a share of the seats assigned.
Why it matters — assigning a licence is not adoption. Copilot is a genuine change in how people work, and without some encouragement a good proportion of users try it once and drift back to old habits. This figure is the clearest early signal of whether a rollout is landing.
What “ready” looks like — half or more of assigned seats active in the last 30 days is a pass. Some usage but below half is a warning. Assigned seats with no usage at all is a fail — that is money leaving the business every month for nothing.
How to fix it — low usage is almost always a change-management problem rather than a technical one. The things that reliably move this number are short role-specific training, a few internal champions who use it visibly, and concrete examples of tasks it helps with. Reassign seats away from people who have not touched it toward those asking for it.
Microsoft’s guidance — Microsoft 365 Copilot usage report
If these show “not measurable”
Usage reporting needs permission to read Microsoft 365 activity reports, and the administrator in the delegated relationship also needs a reporting role such as Global Reader. Without it, usage cannot be read and both checks are excluded from the grade rather than assumed to be zero.
Related
- Licensing — buying the seats in the first place
- Copilot Readiness — why this area only counts toward the Full score