88 VIEWPOINT Laying the groundwork for workplace transformation Organisations must get the foundations right before AI can support modern workers Aaron Wadsworth is senior director, product and strategic partner management at BitTitan Microsoft Copilot and the rapid evolution of AI are changing expectations for the modern workplace. Organisations see opportunities to help employees find information faster, automate repetitive tasks, improve customer experiences and make better use of the knowledge their businesses already possess. But deploying AI is only part of the equation. Its value also depends on the digital environment supporting it. For many organisations, that environment has become increasingly complex. Years of mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, regional growth and cloud adoption can leave businesses operating across multiple Microsoft 365 tenants, legacy directories and disconnected collaboration environments. Documents and conversations may be spread across platforms, identities may exist in multiple systems, and employees may still rely on devices configured for environments the organisation is trying to leave behind. That complexity matters as organisations begin thinking seriously about AI. Copilot works within the applications and information employees use every day. When that information is fragmented across environments, organisations may not be positioned to get the greatest value from AI-powered productivity. That doesn’t mean organisations need to migrate Copilot. It means many need to look at the environment Copilot depends on. Tenant consolidation, for example, can bring employees, collaboration data and business information into a more unified Microsoft 365 environment. An acquisition may require integrating employees and technology from two previously separate organisations. A divestiture presents the opposite challenge: securely separating users and business information while keeping both organisations operating. Modernisation initiatives can also involve moving users from legacy Active Directory environments to Microsoft Entra ID. In each case, the migration supports a larger business objective. In our work with Microsoft customers and partners, we increasingly see migration projects where moving mailboxes is only one part of the requirement. But today’s migration extends beyond the mailbox. An acquisition or tenant consolidation may also involve Microsoft Teams conversations, OneDrive and SharePoint content, identities, Windows profiles and the devices employees need to access the new environment. This changes how IT teams and service providers need to think about migration. Moving data successfully is important, but so is what happens when an employee starts work the next morning. Can they sign in? Is their Windows profile available? Are Teams, Outlook and OneDrive connected to the right environment? Can they access the information they need without opening a support ticket? These details can have an outsized impact on how employees experience organisational change. They also create considerable work for the IT teams
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