Microsoft 365 sprawl rarely starts with one big mistake.

It builds gradually through everyday collaboration: new teams, new sites, shared files, guest access, stale content, unclear ownership, permission drift, inconsistent settings, unused workspaces, and apps or customizations that outlive their original purpose.

For IT teams, this was already hard to manage. But now Copilot and AI-powered experiences are working across the content, permissions, and context that already exist in Microsoft 365. AI does not create the sprawl, but it can make the consequences harder to ignore.

In this practical session, Microsoft MVP Richard Harbridge will help IT teams understand what Microsoft 365 sprawl really looks like, why it matters more in the AI era, and how to tackle it through increasing levels of governance maturity.

You will learn how to recognize different types of sprawl, assess whether your environment is unseen, aware, visible, controlled, managed, or adaptive, and identify practical actions that improve how your team can see, find, fix, and automate governance work.

The session will also include a brief look at how emerging MCP capabilities can support more adaptive governance by helping IT teams surface issues, understand context, and act more consistently.

Who should attend
This session is designed for Microsoft 365 admins, IT managers, platform owners, security and compliance teams, digital workplace leaders, and anyone responsible for Microsoft 365 governance, Copilot readiness, security, management, or employee experience.

Key takeaways
- How Microsoft 365 sprawl affects productivity, security, compliance, cost, and AI readiness.
- The different types of sprawl across workspaces, content, access, configuration, lifecycle, and extensibility.
- How to assess whether your Microsoft 365 sprawl is unseen, aware, visible, controlled, managed, or adaptive.
- Practical actions to improve visibility, prioritization, remediation, and automation.
- How emerging MCP capabilities can support more adaptive Microsoft 365 governance experiences.