How we implemented Copilot in an intranet with 18,000 users

When a global hotel group with 18,000 employees across 40 countries asked us to enable Microsoft Copilot in their SharePoint intranet, the challenge was not technical. It was cultural. The technology was ready, licenses were bought. What was missing was trust.

The real problem

After 4 months of free use, 22% of users had tried Copilot once. 6% used it daily. The main reason we heard in interviews was always the same: "I do not know if my boss, my colleagues or Microsoft can see what it tells me." Fear of data leakage was killing adoption.

What we did

• Activated Microsoft Purview with automatic sensitivity labels by content type (PII, contracts, financial data) and Copilot blocking on highly confidential classifications.
• Built a transparency panel in the intranet with three questions: what data does Copilot use, where is it processed, who sees the prompts. Written in non-technical language.
• Enabled a "draft mode" in Teams where Copilot suggests replies but does not send anything without human approval for the first 6 weeks.
• Launched a champions program: 1 per 200 users, trained in real use cases, with monthly internal sessions.

Results at 90 days

• Daily adoption: from 6% to 41% of active users.
• Support tickets related to internal information search: -58%.
• Intranet NPS: 23 → 71.
• Average time to locate an internal policy: 11 min → 2 min.