The opportunity at a glance
Tower scaled Microsoft 365 Copilot from an initial 100-person pilot to almost 1,000 licensed users across New Zealand and the Pacific, while strengthening the governance and skills needed to support broader AI adoption. Arinco established a governed Power Platform foundation, delivered Tower-wide people assistant and ran an organisation-wide enablement program. During July 2026, Copilot active use reached 96%, while Microsoft’s Copilot Dashboard estimated more than 13,000 Copilot-assisted hours and NZD $1.1 million in modelled productivity value. Delivered across technology, governance and adoption, the program gave Tower greater insight into how Copilot was being used and the value it was creating, alongside the trusted foundations needed to scale agents securely and responsibly.
About Tower
Tower is a New Zealand-based general insurer serving more than 300,000 customers across New Zealand and the Pacific. Founded in 1869 and headquartered in Auckland, Tower offers car, home, contents, business and specialty insurance through direct and partner channels.
Business challenge
Tower had already tested Microsoft 365 Copilot with an initial group of 100 employees. The pilot achieved full active adoption, supported the creation of hundreds of agents and identified more than 1,000 hours of productivity uplift. The next challenge was scaling Copilot to almost 1,000 people across New Zealand and the Pacific.
Scaling introduced new governance, adoption and capability requirements. Tower needed a controlled environment where teams could build and promote agents safely, without creating an unmanaged spread of solutions across personal environments. Tower also wanted to demonstrate that a business-ready agent could operate successfully on this foundation.
At the same time, Tower needed practical enablement for different teams and roles so Copilot would become part of everyday work, rather than simply another tool made available to employees. Scaling successfully required Tower to address two connected priorities. It needed trusted foundations and measurable adoption insights to understand where Copilot was creating value, supported by the security and agent governance controls required to scale with confidence.
Solution
Tower partnered with Arinco to bring the technology, governance and adoption elements together into a coordinated program that could support broader use of Copilot and agents. Arinco delivered three connected workstreams: establishing a governed Power Platform landing zone, building a business-grounded retrieval agent that could draw on trusted organisation context, and delivering an organisation-wide Copilot enablement program supported by adoption and value reporting.
Establishing a governed foundation for agents
Arinco created three governed Power Platform environments for development, testing and production, with Microsoft Entra security groups and dedicated owners controlling access at each stage.
Managed environments, environment groups, environment rules and advanced connector policies provided guardrails for agent development. Arinco also implemented a custom pipeline host and documented promotion process, giving Tower’s support team a repeatable way to move solutions through the application lifecycle.
This foundation gives employees room to innovate while helping Tower maintain oversight, security and control. Together, these governance measures established the trust layer needed to develop, test and scale agents with confidence.
Demonstrating the model with a Tower-wide people assistant
Arinco built a Tower-wide people assistant to demonstrate how a business-grounded agent could operate on the new foundation. The retrieval agent uses approved People and Culture content to answer employee questions directly within the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Grounding the agent in trusted organisational information gave it the context needed to provide answers that were more relevant and more reliable.
Using Copilot Studio’s built-in evaluation tools, the agent achieved a success rate above 90% during testing. When Arinco identified an underlying platform limitation, the team investigated the issue and escalated it to Microsoft with supporting evidence. A validated workaround kept delivery on track.
Arinco then handed the agent, its supporting knowledge and operational documentation to Tower’s platform team.
Building confidence and capability
Alongside the technical foundation, Arinco delivered a six-week enablement program that focused on practical application, responsible use and employee confidence.
The program included an organisation-wide foundation session, 13 role-based masterclasses, 16 drop-in clinics and hands-on use case workshops. It was supported by a community of approximately 30 self-nominated AI champions.
Sessions used examples drawn from Tower’s work so employees could immediately apply what they learned. A human-in-the-loop message reinforced that Copilot can draft, summarise and suggest, while people remain accountable for reviewing, judging and deciding.
Arinco measured adoption and impact using Microsoft’s Copilot Dashboard, supported by usage telemetry, session attendance and user feedback. This gave Tower a repeatable, data-backed approach to tracking adoption, usage and value, providing the insight needed to understand business benefits, identify opportunities and guide future investment.
Applying Copilot to real workflows
Arinco worked with Tower’s Business Analysis Practice, People and Culture, and Marketing teams to identify opportunities within their existing workflows.
Use cases included requirements gathering, document comparison, content auditing, employee engagement survey analysis, performance objective drafting, campaign briefs, results analysis and a potential copy-approval agent.
Each use case was documented with guardrails and example prompts, then shared through Tower’s AI hub for ongoing use.
Outcomes
Tower achieved broad adoption while putting governance, practical skills and repeatable processes in place for continued use of Copilot and agents. The program combined measurable insight into adoption and value with the trusted technical foundations needed to scale responsibly.
Key outcomes include:
- 96% active use: Microsoft 365 Copilot achieved strong active usage across Tower’s licensed user base during the measured period.
- NZD $1.1 million in modelled monthly value: Recorded an estimated more than 13,000 Copilot-assisted hours in July 2026.
- High-volume Copilot use: Tower employees completed 146,328 Copilot actions during the same month.
- Frequent use across the organisation: Around 60% of users were classified as power users, indicating that Copilot had become a regular part of work for a significant proportion of employees.
- More than 500 agents created: Enabled Tower employees to explore and build custom agents, demonstrating strong interest in applying AI to their work.
- Strong employee sentiment: Achieved a 94% satisfaction rate through feedback captured within Copilot.
- Practical, highly rated training: Survey respondents rated Arinco’s training an average of 4.6 out of 5. All respondents said they wanted to retain their licence and would recommend Copilot to a colleague.
- Governed foundations for growth: Tower now has structured development, testing and production environments, a working retrieval agent, documented team use cases and a community of around 30 AI champions.
What's next
With adoption established, Tower is moving from organisation-wide rollout towards deeper and more measurable use of Copilot. Priorities include extending Viva Insights capabilities, standardising the information assets used by Copilot, running further team-based use case workshops and maturing agent governance as development activity grows. These initiatives will help Tower build on the adoption achieved so far by improving the information and reporting that generate Insight, while continuing to mature the security and agent governance foundations that establish trust.
