Benchmark your Microsoft 365 governance and AI readiness.
The teams most confident in their governance reported the most exposure incidents in our study. This benchmark trades the confidence for estate and AI governance scores plus where each lands against teams like yours.
12 QUESTIONS · SKIP ANYTHING · PEEK AT RESULTS ANYTIME
What is the Microsoft 365 Governance Index?
The Microsoft 365 Governance Index is a free self-assessment that scores Microsoft 365 governance on two axes: estate governance maturity and AI readiness. 12 questions gives you two scores and your position against 1,794 IT pros from two independent 2026 studies. You also get a prioritized list of the gaps where you trail comparable teams most.
The studies the Index is built on
Your scores are benchmarked against two independent studies fielded in 2026.
Your estate governance maturity is scored against a survey of 943 IT pros in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Japan, and Australia. While your AI governance readiness is scored against a separate survey of 851 IT leaders in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Ireland.
The two are never combined. Each score is compared only against the study it came from. Both studies are published in full in The State of Microsoft 365 2026.
The dimensions, scoring, and maturity bands of the Index was built by Microsoft MVP Richard Harbridge.
What you get from the Microsoft 365 Governance Index:
- Estate and AI governance scores, a combined Index score, and where all three land against teams in your region, industry, and size.
- Your three biggest gaps, ranked by how far behind comparable teams you are rather than by lowest score, each with the specific move that closes it.
- What teams who answered the way you did actually reported, and what separates the teams whose governance workload went down after AI from everyone else. It’s not the checklist you'd expect.
- A read-only link you can send to whoever owns this next.
FAQ
How is the M365 Governance Index score calculated?
Twelve questions produce two scores out of 100, one for estate governance maturity, one for AI governance readiness. The Index score is the average of the two. Each score is compared only against the study it came from. The two samples are never blended.
What does the M365 Governance Index measure?
Ten dimensions, five on each axis. Estate governance maturity covers visibility, tenant control, incident resilience, cloud footprint, and governance posture. AI readiness covers AI exposure, AI ownership, AI maturity, AI cleanup, and AI monitoring. Each dimension is scored separately and compared against the study average and against teams in your industry.
What's a good M365 Governance Index score?
Each axis runs 0 to 100 and falls into four bands: Reactive, Developing, Managed, and Optimized. The band and the percentile answer different questions. The band tells you whether your practice is adequate on its own terms. The percentile tells you whether a gap is yours or the whole category's.
Is this a Copilot readiness assessment?
Partly. AI governance readiness measures how prepared your tenant is for Copilot and other AI tools—whether AI has already surfaced something it shouldn't, whether anyone owns AI governance, and whether AI usage is monitored. The Index also scores the estate underneath, because Copilot inherits whatever permissions are already there. A Copilot readiness check that ignores the estate misses where most of the exposure comes from.
How is this different from Microsoft Secure Score?
Microsoft Secure Score rates your security configuration against Microsoft's recommended controls, based on settings it reads in your tenant. The M365 Governance Index measures practice rather than configuration—who owns governance, how lifecycle is handled, whether problems get caught by monitoring or after the fact—and compares you against what other IT teams report doing.
Secure Score tells you which settings to change. The Index tells you where your operating model sits against the field.
How does the M365 Governance Index relate to Microsoft Purview?
Microsoft Purview is a set of tools for data governance and compliance—retention, sensitivity labels, DLP, eDiscovery. The Index doesn't assess your Purview configuration. It measures the governance practice around it: whether anyone owns AI governance, whether sharing and access get reviewed on a cadence, whether issues surface through monitoring or after the fact.
Purview gives you the controls. The Index tells you whether the practice around them holds up.
Who is the M365 Governance Index for?
Microsoft 365 admins, IT managers, and IT directors responsible for governance, particularly the ones now being asked about Copilot and AI.
The studies behind it sampled 1,794 IT leaders across nine countries, so the comparison holds for mid-market and enterprise tenants. You don't have to be the person who fixes the gaps. Plenty of people run it to show someone else where the gaps are.