When Permissions Become the Weak Link in AI Success

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Microsoft Copilot is quickly becoming the crown jewel of enterprise productivity. It promises to unlock the knowledge inside your data, make work faster, and surface insights that matter. But here’s the catch: if your data isn’t clean, structured, and permissioned correctly, Copilot doesn’t just speed up productivity, it speeds up risk (basically giving your out data its own TED Talk.)

We’ve seen this play out first-hand.

Nightmare #1: Copilot Meets a Broken SharePoint

One enterprise started moving more and more of their environment from on-prem to OneDrive and SharePoint. Everything seemed fine until they started testing Copilot.
That’s when the nightmare hit.

Copilot didn’t just pull helpful insights. It also exposed sensitive information sitting in the wrong places, thanks to a permissions error buried deep across their SharePoint sites. What was invisible in day-to-day use suddenly became very, very visible. The results left their team shocked.

This isn’t an isolated scenario. Copilot doesn’t care about your intentions, it simply surfaces what exists. If your permission model is broken, Copilot will highlight it in seconds.

 

Nightmare #2: The Privilege Creep Problem

Another client had a different (but equally as dangerous) issue. Employees were accessing information they shouldn’t. Leadership thought they had it under control, but the CEO wasn’t convinced. He wanted proof:

“I want to see everything this person has access to. I’m worried they’ve been elevating their privileges behind the scenes.”

This isn’t paranoia. It’s reality. Privilege creep, when employees gain access to more data than they should over time, is one of the most common compliance blind spots. Add Copilot to the mix, and suddenly every piece of over-permissioned content becomes a risk surface.

The Difference Between a Liability and a Superpower

 

The bottom line? Copilot without Aparavi accelerates disasters. Copilot with Aparavi accelerates harmony.

 

Why This Matters More Now

The old approach to permissions “set it and forget it” doesn’t work anymore. AI tools like Copilot are amplifiers. They don’t distinguish between what’s appropriate and what’s overexposed. They surface everything.

That means organizations need more than hope and Band-Aid fixes. They need visibility:

  • Across environments: On-prem, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Exchange.
  • Across users: Who can access what, and who shouldn’t.
  • Across AI outputs: What Copilot will actually surface when permissions aren’t airtight.

Where Aparavi Changes the Game

We don’t just help you prep for Copilot, we help you safeguard against the risks it exposes:

  • Map your data: Index and classify data across silos without moving it.
  • Verify permissions: See exactly who has access to what before Copilot does.
  • Stop privilege creep: Identify overexposed files, sensitive data, and misaligned access models.
  • Deliver AI-ready datasets: Ensure Copilot is powered by the right data, not the risky data.

Copilot is only as good as the data it’s fed. With Aparavi, you don’t just get better results, you get peace of mind knowing that the insights Copilot delivers aren’t accidentally opening the door to your most sensitive information.

AI isn’t exposing new risks. It’s exposing the ones you’ve been ignoring. The real question is, do you want to find them before Copilot does?