From Copilot Experimentation to Governed Enterprise AI
Leading banking and financial services enterprise, UAE
A security-led Copilot adoption and transformation programme moved a regulated UAE bank from fragmented AI interest to a governed enterprise AI operating model.
- Copilot governance model spanning 9 business functions
- Enterprise-wideCopilot governance model spanning 9 business functions
- Custom agents restricted to approved knowledge sources with human-in-the-loop controls
- GovernedCustom agents restricted to approved knowledge sources with human-in-the-loop controls
The challenge
What was going wrong
A leading banking and financial services enterprise in the UAE sought to adopt Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio across business and operational functions. As a highly regulated organisation, it needed to realise the productivity benefits of generative AI without increasing exposure to confidential financial information, customer data, internal reports or regulatory risk. Demand for Copilot was already fragmented across business teams, sensitive information was distributed across SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive and email with inconsistent classification and access permissions, and there was no formal AI governance or approval framework.
Our approach
What we built
- 01
Ran an AI and Copilot readiness assessment covering Microsoft 365 licensing, user and role segmentation, SharePoint and Teams information exposure, identity and access controls, sensitivity labelling, DLP, privileged access and audit and compliance readiness.
- 02
Strengthened the secure foundation: Microsoft Entra access controls, Conditional Access, Privileged Identity Management, Microsoft Purview information protection, sensitivity labels, DLP, external-sharing governance and audit logging.
- 03
Rolled out departmental Copilot adoption with role-based scenarios for executive leadership, relationship managers, risk and compliance, finance, HR, legal, internal audit, IT and customer service — including executive awareness sessions, prompt-engineering workshops and administrator enablement.
- 04
Designed custom Copilot Studio agents for internal policy discovery, regulatory knowledge assistance, employee service requests, risk-control lookup, IT service support and controlled document summarisation, with role-based access, approved knowledge sources, auditability and human-in-the-loop controls.
The outcome
What changed
- Secure and governed Copilot adoption replaced fragmented, uncoordinated demand.
- Improved awareness of AI-related data exposure and greater employee confidence using generative AI.
- Faster access to approved organisational knowledge and reduced repetitive document and information-search activity.
- Controlled development of departmental agents and a repeatable framework for scaling AI across the enterprise.
- Improved alignment between business, compliance, security and technology teams.
