The renewal invoice arrives
Last year the business bought Microsoft 365 Copilot or ChatGPT Team seats for everyone. There was a launch email, maybe a lunchtime session. A few people took to it straight away. Now the renewal is due, and when you ask around, most staff say they tried it a couple of times, did not find much use for it, and went back to how they worked before.
The admin console tells the same story: a small group of heavy users and a long tail of people who have not opened it in weeks. The board wants to know whether the AI investment is working, and the honest answer is that for most of the team it has not started.
Why adoption stalls
A general AI assistant asks every user to work out their own use cases. That is a big ask of someone processing orders or running payroll who has a full day already. They open it, cannot think what to ask, try something vague, get something vague back, and close it.
The people who do use it tend to be the ones whose work is already writing-heavy and flexible. For roles built around specific systems and repeat tasks, a chat window off to the side is an extra step, not a shortcut. The tool is not wrong for those people; it just has not been shaped around what they actually do.
What idle licences are costing
| Symptom | What it means |
|---|---|
| Low weekly active users | You are paying for seats that deliver nothing |
| A few power users | The benefit is real but not spreading |
| No link to specific tasks | Nobody can say what the licences are for |
| Staff quietly using other tools | Personal accounts fill the gap, with the data risk that brings |
| No usage review | The same pattern repeats at the next renewal |
The bigger cost is the conclusion people draw. If the first attempt fizzles, "we tried AI and it did not work for us" becomes the story, and it gets harder to invest in the uses that would pay off.
How we turn idle seats into daily use
- We pull the usage data from the Microsoft 365 admin centre or the ChatGPT workspace admin panel to see who uses what, and how often.
- We interview the heavy users about what they do with it, because their habits are often the best use cases you already have.
- We spend time with the roles that do not use it and list the repetitive, text-heavy parts of their week: the emails answered the same way, the reports assembled by hand, the documents read to find one fact.
- We pick a small number of tasks where the effort is real and the output is easy to check, and build each one into the place the work happens, such as an Outlook add-in, a Teams message extension, a button in the CRM, or a saved Copilot prompt with the right files attached.
- We run short, role-specific sessions showing each group the two or three things that apply to them, not a general tour.
- We review usage again after people have had time to use the tools, and recommend which seats to keep, which to reassign, and which to drop.
If the answer for some roles is that a cheaper plan or no AI seat is fine, we say that. Paying for fewer, well-used licences beats paying for many idle ones.
What changes in the team
Instead of "you have Copilot now, have a go", each team gets specific tools for specific jobs. The finance assistant has a button that drafts the supplier query reply with the invoice details filled in. The service desk has a summary of the customer's history before they pick up the ticket. Use grows because the tool shows up at the moment it is useful.
At the next renewal you can say what the licences are used for, by whom, and which ones earn their place.
Is this your situation?
- You pay for AI seats across the business and most show little or no use.
- The rollout was a launch email and an optional training session.
- A few enthusiasts use it heavily and nobody else does.
- You cannot name the tasks the licences are meant to help with.
- A renewal is coming up and you are not sure whether to renew.