As Microsoft 365 adoption accelerates and AI-driven capabilities expand, many organizations struggle with unclear ownership, inconsistent governance, and growing data risks, according to global IT research firm Info-Tech Research Group. The firm's newly published blueprint, *Govern Microsoft 365*, provides a policy-first framework to help IT and security leaders align governance to business priorities, reduce risk, and enable secure collaboration at scale. Info-Tech's research indicates that while M365 enables flexible collaboration, organizations often struggle to apply governance policies consistently across services, facing challenges such as unclear ownership, uncontrolled data growth, and fragmented governance practices. As AI capabilities like Microsoft Copilot expand how users access enterprise data, these weaknesses become more pronounced, increasing the potential impact of mismanaged permissions and poorly governed content. "Microsoft 365 governance fails when it's treated as a series of configurations rather than a business-aligned model," says John Donovan, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group. The blueprint identifies key governance gaps, including overreliance on default configurations, unclear accountability models, and unmanaged content and access across Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive.