The Challenge
A major Australian engineering consultancy regularly prepares complex technical proposals and bids for infrastructure projects. The proposal process was heavily manual: staff searched through thousands of CVs stored across fragmented tools, manually assembled case studies, tracked contracts in spreadsheets, and copy pasted content between documents. The process was slow, error prone, and didn’t scale. The organisation also had growing concerns about staff using uncontrolled third party AI tools to try to speed things up, creating data leakage and governance risk.
They needed automation that handled proposal preparation, CV discovery, contract tracking, and case study generation, but kept all data inside the Microsoft 365 security boundary.
What Evocate Delivered
Evocate designed and deployed a phased AI enabled solution entirely within the client’s existing Microsoft 365 environment:
- Discovery and governance setup: assessed the data landscape, identified information governance gaps, and established the security foundations needed before AI tooling could be safely enabled
- Microsoft Purview guardrails: sensitivity labels, data loss prevention policies, and information barriers ensuring Copilot only accesses and surfaces appropriately classified content
- SharePoint library restructure: reorganised libraries holding thousands of CVs, proposals, and contracts into a clean, metadata rich information architecture that AI tools can reliably query
- Microsoft Syntex metadata extraction: models that automatically extract and tag key information from CVs, contracts, and case studies (skills, certifications, project history, contract dates, renewal triggers)
- Power Automate workflows: automated notifications for contract renewals, proposal deadlines, and follow up actions
- Copilot Studio agent: a custom AI agent that drafts proposals by automatically pulling relevant CVs, case studies, and capability statements based on bid requirements, assembling them into structured documents for human review
- Governed pilot rollout to proposal teams with access controls and usage monitoring
Outcomes
The proposal teams now draft bids in a fraction of the time previously required. The Copilot Studio agent searches across thousands of consultant CVs and automatically matches relevant experience to bid requirements, work that previously took days of manual searching. Contract tracking is automated through Syntex extraction and Power Automate reminders, eliminating missed renewals. Critically, all AI processing stays inside the Microsoft 365 tenant with Purview governance enforced, removing the need for staff to use uncontrolled third party AI tools. The governance first approach means the organisation can confidently expand AI adoption to other business functions knowing the security foundations are in place.
Why This Matters
This engagement is a blueprint for responsible Microsoft Copilot adoption In Australia organisations. Most businesses that rush into Copilot without governance foundations end up with AI surfacing sensitive content to the wrong people, or staff circumventing controls with ungoverned tools. Evocate’s approach (Purview governance first, then Copilot enablement) is what safe, effective AI deployment looks like. The result proves the pattern works in a real commercial environment with real data sensitivity requirements.
