Accenture rolls Microsoft 365 Copilot out to about 743,000 employees

Accenture and Microsoft said on April 27 that the consulting firm was rolling Microsoft 365 Copilot out across a workforce of about 743,000 people, extending the tool from earlier pilots to nearly the company’s full employee base. Microsoft described it as the largest enterprise Copilot deployment to date. Accenture said the expansion followed phased testing that began in August 2023 and later scaled to 20,000 users before moving wider. (news.microsoft.com) The company said the rollout spans employees across Accenture and Avanade and is being used in day-to-day work in products including Outlook, Teams and Word. ### How big is this rollout, exactly? Microsoft said the deployment covers around 743,000 workers, a population it compared with a city roughly the size of Denver. (learn.microsoft.com) Accenture said in a March 18 company release that it had approximately 784,000 people overall, which indicates the Copilot program now reaches most of its workforce. April 27 marked the public description of that broader phase, but the deployment did not begin all at once. Accenture said it started with a pilot involving a few hundred senior leaders and selected employees, then expanded to 20,000 users, and only later moved into larger waves after the company worked on data strategy, governance and access controls. (news.microsoft.com) ### What evidence did Accenture give that employees are using it? Accenture said company data involving 200,000 users in 2025 showed 97% of employees reported completing routine tasks 15 times faster with Copilot. The same Microsoft-published account said 53% reported significant improvements in productivity and efficiency. (news.microsoft.com) The user-provided figures about 89% monthly active usage and 84% saying they would miss the tool were not confirmed in the primary sources reviewed here. Microsoft’s published feature story and Accenture’s own materials available in this search did not include those two figures, though they did describe high adoption and repeated daily use. (news.microsoft.com) Tony Leraris, Accenture’s chief information officer, said the company treated each stage of the deployment as a chance to learn how employees were using the product before extending it further. “If Microsoft 365 Copilot weren’t delivering real value, our people simply wouldn’t be using it,” Leraris said in Microsoft’s April 27 article. (news.microsoft.com) ### What did Accenture say it had to do before scaling further? Accenture said the early phases focused on data governance, access controls and a broader adoption blueprint. The company said it also built a change-management program that included one-on-one training with leaders, regular communications about new features and use cases, group sessions, and employee support through Viva Engage inside Microsoft 365. (news.microsoft.com) August 2023 was the starting point Accenture gave for its first Copilot deployment efforts. Leraris said the company wanted employees using the tool quickly enough that they could develop working knowledge and discuss its capabilities with clients. (news.microsoft.com) ### What does this show about how Microsoft wants companies to measure Copilot? Microsoft’s own admin documentation says organizations can track Copilot usage through reports that show active users, average daily active users, total prompts submitted and average prompts per user. The reports can be viewed over 7, 30, 90 or 180 days. Those reporting tools line up with the kinds of internal adoption data Accenture highlighted publicly: usage rates, prompt activity and employee-reported productivity changes. (news.microsoft.com) Microsoft’s recommendation cards in the admin center also point customers to steps such as pinning Copilot more prominently in Teams and Outlook to drive use. ### How does this fit into the broader Accenture-Microsoft relationship? Accenture and Microsoft said on March 18 they were launching a forward deployed engineering practice to help clients build and operationalize AI systems across the enterprise. The companies said the effort would bring together thousands of AI-skilled engineers, with Microsoft supplying the platform and Accenture leading process redesign, change management and global deployment. (learn.microsoft.com) That March initiative followed a November 14, 2024 announcement from Accenture, Microsoft and Avanade that they were investing in a Copilot business transformation practice and related client training. The internal rollout at Accenture gives the companies a large reference case as they pitch similar projects to customers. (learn.microsoft.com) March 18 is the next dated milestone the companies have put on the record in this partnership, and Microsoft’s admin center documentation shows the usage benchmarks other customers can use as they expand their own deployments over 30-, 90- and 180-day periods. (news.microsoft.com) (newsroom.accenture.com)