AI Starter Program
Start safely. Scale intentionally.
A focused 4-week engagement that helps Microsoft 365 organizations begin using AI confidently — and leaves you with a tailored AI Roadmap to manage your future.
In 4 weeks we’ll get your people using AI productively AND give leadership a clear-eyed picture of what’s in the way — with prioritized recommendations they can act on with us or anyone else.
You don’t need a massive rollout or a long-term commitment to get started. The AI Starter Program is designed to help you move forward now, reduce risk, and build a foundation that can scale when you’re ready.
What Happens Over the 4 Weeks
- Week 1: Orientation, executive 1:1s, baseline assessment, and the Starter Group begins hands-on training immediately
- Weeks 2-4: Continued hands-on use in real workflows, deeper role-based training, ongoing value capture, leadership coaching, and organizational discovery in parallel
- Week 4: Starter Group and AI Roadmap team present results to leadership, plus a tailored, role focused AI Roadmap for the next 1-12 months (See Example Below)
Want to see the full week-by-week?
Who This Program is For.
✅ This IS a good fit:
🚀 Want to begin using AI NOW, not “someday”
🛡️ Are concerned about safety, governance, or risk
🧠 Prefer building internal capability instead of long‑term dependency on consultants
🛠️ Want real use cases tied to day‑to‑day work
⛔ This may NOT be a fit:
⚡ Expect organization‑wide rollout immediately
🖱️ Want AI implemented with little or no internal involvement
🏗️ Are looking for a fully built solution without internal ownership
What You Walk Away With
At the end of the AI Starter Program, you will have:
- A tailored, organization-specific AI Roadmap with prioritized recommendations at the 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month horizon
- Role-based roadmap views for Finance, PMO/Delivery, Security/Compliance, IT/Data, HR, and Business Leaders
- A practical plan to implement that roadmap — not a slide deck that collects dust
- Real results from your Starter Group demonstrating where AI creates value in your actual workflows
- Identified next focus areas and priorities grounded in data, not guesswork
- Defined roles for future expansion, including early consideration of dedicated AI leadership
- A realistic view of benefits, effort, and investment informed by your M365 environment analysis
- A knowledge base in your AI Copilot Team that lives on after the engagement
Real results from your starter group.
Prioritized options to guide where to invest, expand, and focus next.
(See Example Below)
Start the AI Starter Program
The AI Starter Program is a fixed-scope, 4-week engagement.
$19,500
Deliver wins in weeks not months
Visibility into current AI usage and M365 environment
Safe, approved starter use cases by role
Hands-on Starter Group training across all 4 weeks
Personalized white glove Copilot coaching for leadership
M365 environment and metadata analysis
Clear guardrails (without slowing teams down)
Tailored AI Roadmap with 1, 3, 6, and 12-month priorities
Scales with your organization
Schedule a short call to confirm
prerequisites, and scheduling.
What Happens During the 4 Weeks?
A focused, four-week journey that helps leaders and and Participating Team Members turn early AI use into practical results and define a clear path forward.
Week 1 – Orientation, Setup, and Baseline
These are delivered in parallel with the different stakeholders.
Leadership Orientation
Purpose: Set the frame, align expectations, and remove ambiguity.
- Program approach and adoption model
- Why the controlled rollout starts with a Starter Group
- What the full engagement will look like and how each phase builds
- What the tailored AI Roadmap presentation will include
- What will be covered in leadership coaching sessions (Security, Finance, IT, PMO, HR, Operations)
- Expectations of the Starter Group and leadership participants
- 30-minute session is recorded for anyone unable to attend live
Finance, IT & Security Discovery
Purpose: Ground AI adoption in real cost, risk, and platform realities.
- What AI tools are already being used (formal and informal)
- Copilot licensing currently in place and planned
- Current and projected license costs
- M365 environment analysis — metadata, information architecture, permissions, data quality
- Data security, compliance, and governance considerations
- Key concerns, constraints, and decision criteria from leadership
Starter Group Kickoff & Initial Training
Purpose: Begin hands-on use immediately and establish safe, productive patterns.
- Introduction to Copilot and AI inside their actual Microsoft 365 tools
- Safe use guidelines and guardrails
- First round of hands-on scenarios using real work
- How participants will capture:
- Time saved
- Effort reduced
- Quality improvements
Weeks 2–4 — Training, Coaching, and Discovery
Purpose: Deepen real usage, build confidence, quantify value, and conduct organizational discovery across all leadership areas.
Starter Group
- Weekly training sessions with the Starter Group using AI in their actual day-to-day workflows
- Expansion into deeper, role-specific use cases (not generic demos)
- Continued capture of time savings, productivity improvements, quality gains, and friction points
- Identification of where Microsoft Copilot is a strong fit — and where other tools or approaches may be more appropriate
White Glove Copilot Coaching for Leadership
- Personalized 1:1 coaching sessions available to every leadership participant
- Copilot in Outlook: summarize email threads, prioritize the inbox, draft responses — most leaders save 30–60 minutes per day
- Additional role-specific sessions for IT, PMO, and Security leadership
- If leaders want to go deeper, we explore additional Copilot features across their M365 tools during their coaching sessions
Organizational Discovery
- 1-hour sessions with key team members under each leadership role to understand ground-level realities
- IT/Data, Security/Compliance, Finance, PMO/Delivery, Operations, and HR — each gets a dedicated discovery conversation
- M365 environment deep-dive: metadata, Graph data, tenant configuration, data quality, and permissions
- Findings inform the tailored AI Roadmap and ensure recommendations are grounded in reality, not assumptions
Week 4 – Presentation & Tailored AI Roadmap
Purpose: Turn real Starter Group experience into leadership-ready decisions and a tailored AI Roadmap.
Executive Readout & Tailored AI Roadmap Presentation
Starter Group Perspectives (in their own words) Participating Team Members share:
- How they used AI in real, day-to-day work
- What changed in their workflows
- Where they saved time or improved quality
- What felt natural versus forced
- What they would and would not recommend scaling
Tailored AI Roadmap & Recommendations (facilitated by the AI Roadmap team) Building on what the Starter Group experienced and what discovery revealed:
- Patterns observed across roles and functions
- What is working and why
- Where value is repeatable and likely to scale
- Cost, risk, and governance considerations
- M365 environment findings and data quality insights
- Where Microsoft Copilot fits well — and where other tools may be more appropriate
- Role-based recommendations at the 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month horizon
Deliverable
A tailored AI Roadmap grounded in:
- Real user experience
- Real business impact
- Real environmental and technical data
- Real constraints
- Real priorities
Start the AI Starter Program
The AI Starter Program is a fixed-scope, 4-week engagement.
$19,500
Deliver wins in weeks not months
Visibility into current AI usage and M365 environment
Safe, approved starter use cases by role
Hands-on Starter Group training across all 4 weeks
Personalized white glove Copilot coaching for leadership
M365 environment and metadata analysis
Clear guardrails (without slowing teams down)
Tailored AI Roadmap with 1, 3, 6, and 12-month priorities
Scales with your organization
Schedule a short call to confirm
prerequisites, and scheduling.
What a Finished AI Roadmap Looks Like
Real results from your starter group.
Prioritized options to guide where to invest, expand, and focus next.
Recent Roadmap: Mid-Size Manufacturing Organization
Organization Snapshot
Industry: Manufacturing (2 Plants, Centralized Corporate Team)
Size: ~400–800 employees
Platform: Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Teams, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, SharePoint)
Starting Point
- Microsoft 365 used broadly, but inconsistently:
- Heavy reliance on Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint
- Limited structured use of Teams channels and SharePoint information architecture
- A small number of Copilot licenses recently enabled for early adopters
- Some informal use of public AI tools by individuals
- No shared standards for safe use, training, or value measurement
Leadership Context
- CTO / IT: Responsible for M365, identity, data access, and security boundaries
- CISO / Security: Focused on IP protection, data leakage, and compliance
- CFO / Finance: Concerned about Copilot licensing cost and proving ROI
- COO / Operations: Looking for faster reporting, better root-cause analysis, and improved cross-plant visibility
- PMO / Project Leads: Managing capital projects and improvement initiatives with manual reporting and limited automation
- HR / People Leadership: Workforce readiness, training gaps, and change management for AI adoption
Starter Group
Operations analysts, finance analysts, sales operations, project managers, and engineering leads who spend significant time on:
- Report and forecast preparation
- Executive briefing decks
- Meeting notes and action tracking
- Searching for historical information
- Cross-functional coordination through email and ad-hoc Teams meetings
4-Week Wins
Immediate, Visible Outcomes from the Starter Group
- Executive briefing and weekly operations summaries reduced from hours to minutes
- Automated meeting recap and action extraction
- Faster root-cause and variance explanations using real production and financial data
- Proposal and customer communication drafts produced in a fraction of the time
- Improved consistency of status reporting across plants and functions
Early Value Observed During the Starter Program
A Starter Group of 8 active Participating Team Members (supported by leadership and IT/security):
- 30–60 minutes saved per person per day
- 3–5 hours saved per week per person
- ~150–250 hours per year per person
- At a blended cost of $75–$100/hour → $12K–$25K annual productivity value per user
- Starter Group alone showing $100K+ in annualized productivity impact
*Based on time saved and workflow improvements observed during the engagement. Actual results will vary by role, process maturity, and data quality.
What Leadership Learned
- Where Copilot immediately added value:
- Email and meeting preparation
- Document drafting and summarization
- Financial and operational analysis
- Status and executive communication
- Where structure was required:
- SharePoint and Teams information organization
- Permission hygiene
- Approved vs. restricted use cases
- Which roles benefited fastest:
- Analysts, PMs, operations planners, finance, sales operations
- Which scenarios were not yet ready to scale:
- Highly sensitive IP, uncontrolled data repositories, unstructured legacy content
Resulting Tailored AI Roadmap (Role-Based Views)
Finance
- Copilot licensing and expansion scenarios
- Budget planning and cost allocation
- Productivity value tracking model
- ROI measurement approach for broader rollout
- Funding considerations for dedicated AI leadership role
PMO / Project Delivery
- Priority use cases for requirements gathering, scope identification, and knowledge consolidation
- AI-assisted reporting, summarizing, and communications
- Standard AI-assisted reporting templates
- Governance and cadence integration
Operations
- Production and supply-chain reporting acceleration
- Root-cause analysis support
- Knowledge capture and shift-handover improvement
Security / Compliance
- Approved and restricted AI use categories
- Data classification and prompt guidance
- Audit and monitoring approach
- Guardrails required before scaling
- Strategy to reduce data leaving the M365 environment to external AI tools — making Copilot the safer, easier, better option
- Alignment with roadmap outputs and program decisions
CIO / IT / Data
- Copilot platform fit and limitations
- Information architecture cleanup priorities
- SharePoint and Teams readiness
- Data quality and structure improvements to unlock more AI value
- Communication alignment with Security and roadmap outputs
HR / People Leadership
- Workforce strategy and training investment
- Role evolution and change management approach
- Early consideration of who will own AI adoption internally — whether that’s an existing role that expands or a future dedicated AI leadership position
Business Leaders
- Role-based expansion plan
- Training and change cadence
- Sequenced rollout by function and priority
Overall Recommendation
Based on Starter Group results, M365 environment analysis, and leadership discovery, this organization was ready to expand Copilot licensing to 25–50 users across Operations, Finance, and PMO — the three areas showing the highest immediate return. Information architecture improvements in SharePoint were recommended in parallel to unlock deeper AI value and keep company data within the secure M365 environment. Security guardrails were confirmed in place and ready to support the expansion.
Executive Takeaway
Real results from your Starter Group.
Prioritized recommendations to guide where to invest, expand, and focus next.
This roadmap gave leadership:
- A clear picture of what worked and why
- Which roles and departments should expand first
- What must be fixed before scaling (data quality, permissions, information architecture)
- How to fund and govern the next phase
- Who should own AI adoption going forward
- How to keep company data inside the secure M365 environment while expanding AI value
Role-Based Next Steps (1–12 Month View)
Finance — First 90 Days:
- Finalize Copilot expansion budget based on roadmap priorities
- Establish productivity value tracking model for ongoing ROI measurement
- Begin evaluating funding for a dedicated AI leadership role
PMO / Project Delivery — First 90 Days:
- Roll out AI-assisted requirements gathering and scope identification to project teams
- Standardize AI-assisted reporting and communications templates
- Integrate AI into existing governance cadence
Operations — First 90 Days:
- Expand Copilot to operations analysts and shift leads
- Implement AI-assisted root-cause analysis and knowledge capture
- Establish shift-handover improvement process
Security / Compliance — Ongoing:
- Monitor and refine approved vs. restricted AI use categories
- Work with the AI Roadmap team to reduce data leaving the secure M365 environment — redirecting workflows that currently rely on external AI tools back into Copilot
- Expand data classification and audit approach as adoption grows
CIO / IT / Data — First 90 Days:
- Begin SharePoint and Teams information architecture cleanup (highest-impact improvements first)
- Address data quality and permission hygiene gaps identified during the engagement
- Align with Security on reducing shadow AI by making Copilot the easier, better option
HR / People Leadership — First 6 Months:
- Develop internal AI training cadence based on Starter Group experience
- Begin the conversation about who will own AI adoption long-term — whether that’s an existing role that expands or a future dedicated AI leadership position
- Plan change management approach for broader rollout
Business Leaders — First 90 Days:
- Expand to next group of Participating Team Members using sequenced rollout plan
- Establish internal champions from the original Starter Group to support onboarding
- Review 3-month roadmap priorities and adjust based on early expansion results
Start the AI Starter Program
The AI Starter Program is a fixed-scope, 4-week engagement.
$19,500
Deliver wins in weeks not months
Visibility into current AI usage and M365 environment
Safe, approved starter use cases by role
Hands-on Starter Group training across all 4 weeks
Personalized white glove Copilot coaching for leadership
M365 environment and metadata analysis
Clear guardrails (without slowing teams down)
Tailored AI Roadmap with 1, 3, 6, and 12-month priorities
Scales with your organization
Schedule a short call to confirm
prerequisites, and scheduling.
Who Is Involved?
AI adoption fails when it’s only top-down or only bottom-up. The Starter Program intentionally does both.
Up to 6 Leadership Participants
(The people who control safety, scale, and funding)
Typically includes
- CIO / IT / Data
- CISO / Security / Compliance
- CFO / Finance
- PMO / Delivery
- COO / Operations or Business Leader
- HR / People Leadership
Why They’re Involved
- Set direction and guardrails early
- Align expectations on safe, incremental rollout
- Avoid rework and last-minute governance surprises
- Ensure early success can scale responsibly
- Experience Copilot firsthand through personalized white glove coaching
These leaders set the direction for safe, funded, scalable adoption — and through personalized coaching, they experience the value firsthand.
5 Participating Team Members + Your Stakeholder/PM
(The people who turn AI into real value)
Typically includes
- Tech-leaning team members
- Natural problem-solvers
- People already experimenting (formally or informally)
- Your Stakeholder/PM (who participates in all training sessions
Why They’re Involved
- Apply AI to real, day-to-day work
- Generate quick, visible wins
- Surface practical questions and patterns
- Create internal momentum for expansion
- Present results to leadership in their own words
These Participating Team Members prove value while leadership builds confidence. Your PM participates alongside them to stay connected and promote the program internally.
What Happens After
the AI Starter Program?
The Momentum Continues
Organizations that complete the AI Starter Program typically see enough value in the first 4 weeks that expansion becomes the obvious next step — not because we push for it, but because the results speak for themselves.
Here’s what we’ve seen:
- Leadership expands Copilot licensing based on the tailored AI Roadmap priorities — starting with the roles and departments that showed the highest return during the engagement
- The Starter Group becomes internal champions who help onboard the next wave of Participating Team Members, bringing firsthand experience and credibility that no outside consultant can match
- Organizations move from Level 1 into Level 2 — AI grounded in company data, deeper SharePoint and Teams integration, and smarter use of the knowledge already inside their M365 environment
- Security and IT see immediate value as we work together to reduce the risk of company data being exported to external AI tools. When Copilot is grounded in the organization’s own data and works better than the alternatives, people stop reaching for outside tools on their own. The knowledge base expands naturally when data stays within the secure environment.
- HR and Finance begin the AI leadership conversation — who will own this going forward, what the training cadence looks like, and how to fund the next phase based on real ROI data from the Starter Program
Every organization we’ve worked with has continued expanding AI adoption after the Starter Program — not because of a contract obligation, but because the foundation was in place and the path forward was clear.
There is no obligation to continue beyond the Starter Program. The goal is to leave you with clarity, confidence, and a tailored plan — not a long-term dependency on consultants. But when the results are real and the roadmap is clear, the next step tends to take care of itself.
Start the AI Starter Program
The AI Starter Program is a fixed-scope, 4-week engagement.
$19,500
Deliver wins in weeks not months
Visibility into current AI usage and M365 environment
Safe, approved starter use cases by role
Hands-on Starter Group training across all 4 weeks
Personalized white glove Copilot coaching for leadership
M365 environment and metadata analysis
Clear guardrails (without slowing teams down)
Tailored AI Roadmap with 1, 3, 6, and 12-month priorities
Scales with your organization
Schedule a short call to confirm
prerequisites, and scheduling.