ShareGate launches MCP for Microsoft 365 governance

ShareGate has launched ShareGate MCP for Microsoft 365 governance in AI assistants including ChatGPT, Claude and Microsoft Copilot. The product is aimed at IT professionals managing governance and data exposure risks linked to AI use.

The tool is designed to help IT teams surface oversharing risks, assess AI readiness and carry out governance tasks from a single AI chat interface, rather than switching between multiple dashboards and admin tools. Early access is available to ShareGate Protect users through a manual installation process.

The launch comes as companies face growing pressure to tighten controls around data and collaboration tools as they adopt generative AI. ShareGate cited its own research showing that 71% of IT professionals reported increased governance workloads after deploying AI.

Governance burden

That increase points to a wider problem for organisations rolling out AI across Microsoft 365 environments. Governance teams are being asked to identify where information may be overshared, determine whether data and permissions are suitable for AI use, and respond quickly when risks are found.

Existing products often split reporting, policy management and remediation across different systems, slowing investigations and corrective action. ShareGate is positioning its new product around the idea that these steps should happen within the same conversational interface staff already use for AI queries.

Available functions include tenant intelligence through natural-language prompts, allowing IT teams to identify access exposure, oversharing risks and AI-readiness issues. The product also supports branded governance reports generated from a single prompt, with PDF export and the ability for partners to run reports across several client tenants.

Two more functions are due later. They include automated governance policy creation through conversational prompts, with policies remaining paused until a human enables them, and in-conversation remediation with a natural-language preview before any change is made.

Benjamin Niaulin, Vice President of Product at ShareGate, said the product was built to reduce the fragmentation that often defines Microsoft 365 governance work.

"Governance has never lived in one place because nothing was ever built to hold it," said Niaulin. "AI tools just became another admin centre IT had to open to answer one question. With ShareGate MCP, we made a different bet: collapse the work into the tool you're already in."

Partner interest

ShareGate is also targeting consulting firms and Microsoft partners that manage multiple customer environments. The product could help them run AI-readiness checks, produce customer-facing reports and address governance issues across several Microsoft 365 tenants from one interface.

Among the partners working with ShareGate on the approach is Avanade, which advises clients on Microsoft technology deployments. The consulting group said businesses are trying to modernise collaboration systems and prepare for AI adoption while maintaining security and operational control.

"Organisations are under increasing pressure to modernise collaboration, strengthen governance and prepare their Microsoft 365 environments for AI adoption, all while maintaining security and operational control," said James Dierks, US AI Workforce Practise Lead at Avanade. "At Avanade, we help clients navigate that complexity by combining deep Microsoft expertise with governance, security and adoption strategies that enable long-term business value. Through our collaboration with ShareGate, organisations can gain more actionable visibility into their Microsoft 365 environments and simplify governance workflows directly within the tools employees already use, helping accelerate secure and responsible AI readiness at scale."

The release also reflects a broader shift in enterprise software towards carrying out administrative work inside conversational interfaces. Rather than using AI solely to retrieve information, software vendors are increasingly trying to turn chat-based tools into control points for operational tasks, including drafting policies, generating reports and approving changes.

For Microsoft 365 users, that trend has particular relevance because AI assistants may surface information from documents, emails, team sites and collaboration spaces. If permissions are poorly configured or legacy content remains exposed, AI tools can make those weaknesses more visible and harder to manage at scale.

ShareGate, developed by Workleap, has historically focused on Microsoft migration and governance products. The company said AI is testing both the adequacy of governance foundations and whether the tools used by IT teams are fit for a faster, more complex workload.

Simon De Baene, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Workleap, linked the product launch to that shift in day-to-day administration.

"Everyone is racing to adopt AI, and doing it right is hard. AI is creating a whole new surface, with a whole new level of exposure, and governance has never mattered more," said De Baene. "For a long time, it lived in a dusty Word document nobody read. Then came tools trying their best to give some kind of visibility. But a solution you have to open every morning and click around can't keep up with the pace of what's happening. Governance needs to be always-on and fully integrated in your daily workflows. ShareGate MCP is how we make that real. We're enabling an agentic approach to governance that just wasn't possible before."