No. We recommend running the readiness assessment first, since the results often change how many licenses you actually need and who should get them in an initial pilot.

Copilot will surface whatever it has access to, including oversharing permissions, stale files, and content that should be restricted. Skipping readiness work does not stop Copilot from working, it just means it works against a messier, riskier environment.

Most assessments take one to two weeks, depending on the size of your Microsoft 365 tenant and how much cleanup work file permissions and sensitivity labels need.