Why "Copilot-Only" AI Approaches Backfire

The pattern repeats across most companies I work with right now.

Someone in leadership decides Microsoft Copilot will be the company's "official AI tool." IT gets it licensed. A training programme gets rolled out. The same training. For everyone. Focused almost entirely on how to use Copilot.

Leadership checks the box and moves on.

This approach fails. Not because Copilot is bad—it's genuinely useful inside Microsoft ecosystems. It fails because it confuses tool deployment with actual AI readiness. And it creates exactly the problems it claims to solve.

One tool isn't enough

Copilot does specific things well. Summarising email threads. Drafting documents from meeting notes. Pulling data across Microsoft apps.

But it doesn't do everything. And when you limit an entire organisation to one tool, you create a gap between what's officially allowed and what people actually need.

That gap gets filled quietly.

Marketing uses Claude for better copywriting. Finance runs complex analysis through ChatGPT. Product teams use Gemini for competitive research. All outside approved systems. All without proper data governance.

You haven't solved an AI problem. You've created a security problem while pretending you've solved an AI problem.

The minimum baseline today isn't Copilot. It's at least one serious, general-purpose, multimodal AI tool approved for company data. ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Pick one. Set up proper governance. Train people on when to use it versus when to use Copilot.

Most companies need both: Copilot for Microsoft-native workflows, plus a general-purpose tool for everything else.

The training model is backwards

The second problem is how companies approach AI training.

Most organisations train people on a tool. They run workshops on Copilot features. Where to find it. What buttons to click. Generic prompt examples that don't connect to anyone's actual job.

This is like teaching someone to drive by explaining the dashboard. Technically accurate. Practically useless.

What works better is the opposite order.

Start with AI literacy that's tool-agnostic. How do these systems actually work? Where do they fail predictably? What risks matter for your industry? What does "good enough" look like for different use cases?

This isn't about making everyone an AI expert. It's about building enough understanding that people can make reasonable decisions about when AI helps and when it doesn't.

Then move to small, role-specific cohorts. Finance teams have different workflows than customer service. Legal has different risk tolerances than marketing. Generic training ignores all of this.

The sessions that actually change behaviour are hands-on. Teams take a real workflow—something they do weekly or daily—and redesign it with AI. Not hypotheticals. Not demos. Their actual work.

This takes more effort than licensing a tool and running everyone through the same slide deck. But it produces people who can adapt when tools change. (And tools will change. Quickly.)

The real goal

None of this is about creating AI power users or getting everyone to spend hours in ChatGPT.

The goal is simpler: make the gap between "approved" and "useful" small enough that people stop working around it.

When that gap is small, you get visibility into how AI is actually being used. You can spot risks before they become problems. You can share what's working across teams.

When the gap is large, you get shadow IT, inconsistent quality, and data flowing through systems you don't control.

Most companies are currently optimising for the appearance of AI adoption. A licensed tool. A completed training. A box checked.

That's not the same as building an organisation that knows how to use these tools well. And the difference will become obvious faster than most executives expect.