Confident or covered? Microsoft MVPs unpack the 2026 State of Microsoft 365 report
Confidence isn't control. Four Microsoft MVPs will separate the real risks from the noise and take your questions.
We asked IT teams in 9 countries about migration, governance, compliance, and AI in Microsoft 365. The answers don't add up.
Confidence is up. So is exposure. Why?
To answer that, we’re bringing four Microsoft MVPs together in this roundtable: Marc D. Anderson will dig into where the risk actually sits and what to fix first. Laura Rogers will explain why none of these problems started with Copilot. Jasper Oosterveld will show how differently compliance lands in Europe versus North America. Richard Harbridge will be leading the discussion and connect it to what he sees across the ecosystem.
What we'll dig into:
- Why are the most confident teams having the most incidents? 93% say their governance is ready for AI, yet 29% have had AI surface sensitive data it shouldn't have reached—and the most confident teams report the highest exposure of all.
- What makes AI's return on investment so hard to prove? 86% expect measurable ROI within 18 months, but 51% can't see what it costs.
- How the tooling gap widened in the year everyone deployed Copilot. 77% had a governance incident, like stale access or an audit gap, and only 1% use a tool built to prevent one.
- Why more teams are delaying migrations over compliance.That group jumped from 20% to 34% in a year.
Findings come from The State of Microsoft 365: Migration, governance, and the AI reckoning in 2026—two surveys: 943 IT professionals on migration, governance, security, and compliance, and 851 IT leaders on AI governance.
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About our hosts
Richard Harbridge is a Microsoft MVP and Technology & Ecosystem Strategist at ShareGate. He helps leaders gain clarity, confidence, and connection around Microsoft 365—linking partners, customers, and communities to turn tech potential into measurable impact.
Laura Rogers is a Microsoft MVP and CEO of IW Mentor, a SharePoint and Microsoft 365 training company. With over two decades of experience in implementation, training, customization, and administration, she focuses on no-code and low-code solutions using Power Apps and Power Automate, helping organizations get more out of their Microsoft 365 investment.
Marc D. Anderson is a Microsoft MVP and the Co-Founder and President of Sympraxis Consulting, a Boston-based firm specializing in Microsoft 365, SharePoint, and Azure. With 40+ years in technology consulting and software development, he's a proven problem solver who helps organizations of all sizes tackle their toughest technology challenges.
Jasper Oosterveld is a Microsoft MVP and Data Security Consultant at Rubicon Cloud Advisor, specializing in Microsoft Purview and Microsoft 365. With great passion, he inspires and helps you implement data security, governance, and adoption within Microsoft 365. Interested in learning from him? He loves to share his expertise and love for Microsoft products!