Excellent question! First, AI rollout sequencing, adoption and pace will vary by organizational culture, industry, size, etc. That said, consider the following for general guidance:

Organizations should sequence AI adoption by starting with individual Copilot usage, then expanding to team-level and function‑level agents once usage patterns and value are clear. Early Copilot rollout builds AI literacy, trust, and demand by helping users learn how Copilot fits into daily work. Signals that an organization is ready to move from Copilot to agents include repeated AI-driven tasks across teams, the need to share knowledge or workflows, leadership demand for auditability, and IT or security questions about agent inventory, ownership, and data access.

This is where Agent 365 is critical. Agent 365 is designed to manage, govern, and monitor agents at scale, not to create them, and ensuring agents don’t outpace security, compliance, or operational controls as adoption grows. Again, we also find that many organizations will opt to rollout Copilot and agents concurrently to meet both problem spaces (AI as personal assistant at work and AI as function-specific agents)

Many organizations start with Copilot and then add agents, but that's not necessarily the only path. 

Prior to building agents, organizations should have a plan for how to manage and govern them. It's also important to prepare your data estate for use with AI. We provide guidance on that with blueprints for Copilot and agents.

Signals we recommend examining include usage patterns, which you can get from Copilot and Agent Analytics. 

There is a lot more that can be said on this topic than can be fit into a short response in this forum.