Week
01
Discovery Sprint
- Workflow selection, data-driven, not preference-driven
- KPI baseline and target definitions
- Data inventory and access scope
- Governance posture review
Service · Centered Agent Launchpad
From Copilot license to first production agent in six weeks.
Centered Agent Launchpad lands a live, governed, measured AI agent for your team. Six pre-built Agent Kits as starting points. Microsoft Agent 365 governance from day one. A Power BI scoreboard at handover. Three structural guarantees.
Microsoft Solutions Partner, Data & AI Five Solutions Partner designations including Modern Work and Security Microsoft Copilot Deployment Accelerator funded (up to $50K offset) Open Repo Promise: every artifact stays in your tenant
You bought Copilot. The board is asking what's next.
Most mission-driven organizations that activated Microsoft 365 Copilot 60 to 120 days ago are stuck at Chat. The license is paying every month. Some staff use it for drafting. Nobody has built anything. The board is asking what's next, the major funder is asking about AI strategy, and the answer is harder to construct every quarter.
This is the gap between having Copilot and running an AI practice. The difference is agents: not chatbots, but digital colleagues with specific jobs, governed under Microsoft Agent 365, measured against KPIs the board can read.
The problem is that custom agents from scratch take months and cost $150K from a large consultancy. Internal IT trying to build them rarely ships to production. The agent dies in someone's OneDrive at the prototype stage. The Microsoft Funding offer expires unused. And the board question stays unanswered.
Launchpad is the answer. Six weeks. One production agent. Three structural guarantees.
How it works
The Observe / Govern / Secure Production Path
A four-to-six-week productized engagement that lands your first production AI agent on Microsoft Agent 365. The methodology mirrors Microsoft's own Agent 365 control plane framework, intentionally. We're not inventing a new vocabulary; we're operationalizing the one Microsoft already gave the market.
The engagement is bounded. The deliverables are named. The guarantees are structural. By Week 6, you have a live agent in production, a Power BI KPI scoreboard publishing weekly, and a board-ready executive readout with the 90-day expansion roadmap.
You're not paying for slideware. You're paying for a working agent and the governance infrastructure to add the next one.
The six-week path
What happens each week.
Fixed weeks, named milestones, named deliverables. You know exactly where you stand every Friday.
Week
02
Governance baseline and Agent 365 setup
- Entra ID, Conditional Access, Purview labels confirmed
- Microsoft Agent 365 control plane configured (Observe / Govern / Secure)
- Agent registry, mapping, lifecycle management activated
- Agent selection from the Agent Kit catalog or custom scope finalized
Week
03
Copilot Studio build
- Agent built in Copilot Studio
- Grounded in your data sources (SharePoint, CRM, Fabric)
- Human-in-the-loop checkpoints designed
- Audit trail enabled
Week
04
Pilot with 3 to 5 staff users
- Pilot cohort onboarded
- Role-based training delivered
- Prompt library published
- First-week feedback captured
Week
05
Iteration and production hardening
- Two iteration rounds based on pilot feedback
- Load testing and drift detection baseline
- Cost monitoring and FinOps oversight
- Full governance posture applied
Week
06
Launch, scoreboard, handover
- Agent live in production
- Power BI KPI dashboard publishing weekly
- Handover package: source, prompts, dashboard, runbook
- Executive readout with 90-day expansion roadmap
The Centered AI Practice:
AI Quickstart
Agent Launchpad (current)
Frontier Transformation
Managed AgentOps
See the full ladder →
Starting points
Six pre-built Agent Kits. Pick one. We adapt it to your workflow.
You're not starting from a blank canvas. We have six pre-built Agent Kits: patterns we see repeating across the mission sector. Each ships with a working prototype, configurable workflows, governance posture, and a measurement framework.
Donor Intelligence
Drafts donor outreach, summarizes giving history, surfaces major-gift prep briefings. Grounded in your CRM.
Best fit for: foundations, larger nonprofit development offices.
Intake and Routing
Reads incoming forms and emails, classifies, routes to the right team, drafts acknowledgments.
Best fit for: legal services, FQHCs, foundation LOI review, constituent service requests.
Knowledge Keeper
Answers staff questions grounded in your policies, board materials, and program documentation.
Best fit for: organizations with high turnover, new-hire onboarding pain, or tribal knowledge problems.
Research Assistant
Drafts grant prospect profiles, foundation due diligence, and program literature synthesis.
Best fit for: grants offices, rural hospital clinical research, program research teams.
Constituent Support
Handles routine constituent questions: eligibility, application status, program details. Escalates the rest.
Best fit for: legal services hotlines, patient services, social services intake.
Board Reporter
Synthesizes program data into board-ready reports, donor briefings, and grant interim reports.
Best fit for: executive directors and program leads whose quarterly board prep takes a week.
Risk reversal
Three structural commitments.
We stack them because the three ways AI engagements fail are distinct: the agent doesn't ship, nobody uses it, or you leave and take nothing. Each guarantee targets one of those failure modes.
01
The 6-Week Production Promise
The agent is live in production within six weeks of kickoff, or we keep working at no additional cost until it is. The clock starts at kickoff and stops at production go-live. If a Microsoft-side licensing issue or a client-side data decision causes a delay, we pause transparently and re-baseline. Otherwise we're on the hook.
We can stand behind this because the engagement is productized. We don't design from scratch on your time. Most Launchpad engagements ship by Week 5; six weeks is the ceiling, and it exists to leave margin for the pilot feedback loop.
02
The First-Agent-Live Promise
By Week 6, at least three pilot users are actively using the agent. If fewer staff are using it during production weeks, we re-scope the workflow at no charge and re-train the cohort. We treat adoption as a deliverable, not a hope. The most common failure mode of AI projects is "we built it but nobody used it." We underwrite against that specifically.
Adoption is engineered from Week 1. The workflow selection process, the prompt library, the pilot cohort structure, and the role-based training are all designed to land with real usage, not just a technically deployed agent.
03
The Open Repo Promise
Every artifact: the Copilot Studio agent, the prompt library, the Power BI dashboard, the governance configuration, the runbook, lives in your Microsoft 365 tenant. Exported. Documented. Yours. If you leave CN tomorrow, you take the agent with you and it keeps running.
We earn the relationship through value, not through artifact gatekeeping. This isn't a guarantee we have to enforce. It is structural. The agent lives in your tenant from the moment it's built.
Investment
Three tiers. Microsoft funds part of it.
Fixed scope, fixed timeline, fixed price. The tier determines the complexity of the first agent and the number of integrations, not the timeline or the guarantees.
Tier 1
Starter
$25,000
One agent from the Agent Kit catalog. Fifty to 200 users. Single data source. The fastest path to a governed production agent.
Tier 2
Custom
$35,000
One custom Copilot Studio agent with more integration work. Up to two data sources. For organizations where a catalog kit needs meaningful adaptation.
Tier 3
Two agents
$50,000
Two agents from the catalog, or one complex agent with external system integration: CRM, EHR, or donor database. For organizations with two clearly separable high-value workflows.
Microsoft Copilot Deployment Accelerator funding
Most qualifying clients see meaningful offset via the Microsoft Copilot Deployment Accelerator, sized $5K (XS) / $10K (S) / $25K (M) / $50K (L) by seat tier. CN handles the funding paperwork as part of the engagement. Net cost is often $0 to $15K for a Tier 1 engagement after accelerator offset.
Client-procured Microsoft 365 Copilot is $25.50/user/month at Nonprofit Program pricing. Copilot Studio is $50/organization/month with the 75% nonprofit discount, including 25,000 messages.
What needs to be true before kickoff.
A governance baseline is required
Launchpad requires either Centered AI Quickstart completed (or in flight), or CompleteCare Foundations active. The reason is structural: we don't deploy agents into ungoverned environments because doing so creates exactly the AI risk the Microsoft Agent 365 framework exists to prevent.
If you don't have either prerequisite yet, the Discovery Sprint scoping call will identify the path. Typically that's a combined Quickstart and Launchpad engagement, which we can sequence in 8 to 10 weeks total.
Built for mission-driven organizations ready to move past Chat.
This is built for you if
- You have Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed and activated, but the board is asking what's next
- You have AI Quickstart or CompleteCare Foundations in place (or both are scoped)
- You have a workflow that is eating your team's time and has a clear data source to ground the agent
- Leadership wants a board-ready AI deliverable with a KPI scoreboard, not a prototype
- You want the agent to stay in your tenant permanently, not locked inside a vendor platform
This isn't a fit if
- You haven't activated Microsoft 365 Copilot yet: start with AI Quickstart or the Discovery Sprint
- Your governance baseline isn't in place: ungoverned agents create exactly the risk you're trying to avoid
- You want a fully autonomous agent on day one: agents need human-in-the-loop stages and a pilot period before broader deployment
- You want a set-it-and-forget-it build: Launchpad is a live handover, not a black box
In practice
What this looks like for organizations like yours.
Community foundation, 25 to 60 staff
Grants team was spending 6 to 8 hours per LOI cycle on initial prospect research and donor briefing prep. Selected the Donor Intelligence kit in the Week 1 Discovery Sprint, grounded it in Raiser's Edge NXT. Agent went to production in Week 5. The grants team recovered 5 hours per LOI cycle within the first month and the board received its first AI-sourced program report at the next quarterly meeting.
“We had been told AI was two years away for organizations our size. Launchpad proved the opposite: we had a governed, board-ready agent in six weeks and it cost less than a single grant writer's annual salary.”
Program OfficerRepresentative client profile
Legal services nonprofit, 80 to 150 staff
Intake team was spending 40% of their hours on triage and routing. Selected the Intake and Routing kit. Week 2 governance baseline confirmed that Microsoft Purview sensitivity labels weren't configured for client data, which Launchpad resolved before the agent touched any client records. Agent live in Week 6; intake triage time dropped 55% within 30 days of launch.
“The fact that the governance work happened before the build was the unlock. Every other vendor wanted to build first and figure out data governance later. CN did it in the right order.”
Operations DirectorRepresentative client profile
Rural critical access hospital, 200 to 350 staff
Clinical research team was sourcing literature reviews manually across PubMed and clinical databases. Selected the Research Assistant kit with Epic FHIR integration (Tier 3). Agent went live Week 6 with full HIPAA audit trail and human-in-the-loop review for any patient-adjacent query. Time-to-literature-synthesis dropped from 4 hours to 25 minutes for standard queries.
“Our CIO was skeptical that a six-week timeline was realistic for a HIPAA-governed environment. The governance baseline work in Week 2 was what made it possible.”
Clinical Research CoordinatorRepresentative client profile
Questions
Frequently asked questions about Agent Launchpad.
What's the difference between Copilot Quickstart and Agent Launchpad?
Quickstart deploys Microsoft 365 Copilot itself, hardens governance, and activates the foundational Agent 365 control plane. Launchpad builds and ships the first production agent on top of that foundation. Quickstart is "Copilot is safe and live." Launchpad is "first agent is live, governed, and measured."
Can we start with two agents instead of one?
Yes, that's Tier 3. We recommend starting with one for first-time engagements to compress the timeline and let the change-management curve settle. Tier 3 makes sense for organizations with two clearly separable high-ROI workflows or one workflow that requires deep external system integration.
Do we have to start with Donor Intelligence?
No. The six kits are starting patterns, not a sequence. Foundations often pick Donor Intelligence; rural hospitals often pick Research Assistant; intake-heavy nonprofits pick Intake and Routing. The Week 1 Discovery Sprint is where the choice is made, based on workflow data.
What if our CRM is older or unusual?
Tier 3 covers external system integration. We've worked with Raiser's Edge NXT, Salesforce NPSP, Dynamics 365 Nonprofit Accelerator, Bloomerang, EveryAction, Epic via FHIR, OCHIN, and Athenahealth. If your system has an API and your data is accessible, we can integrate.
What about EU data residency or Anthropic model restrictions?
Microsoft Copilot Cowork (which includes Anthropic models) is off by default for EU tenants per Microsoft's EU Data Boundary policy. We default to OpenAI models for EU clients and respect your tenant's configured model controls. The agent we build doesn't bypass your tenant's existing model governance.
What does the managed services team handle after Launchpad?
If you continue into CompleteCare Intelligence after Launchpad, the managed services team operates the agent day-to-day: drift detection, cost monitoring, governance audit, monthly value reports, and quarterly use-case expansion. If you'd rather run it in-house, the handover package contains everything your internal IT team needs.
Can we evaluate other vendors during this conversation?
Yes. We invite that explicitly. The Open Repo Promise exists in part because we believe the right vendor for any client is the one who'll hand them the source code on day one. Compare that promise against any custom AI consultancy and ask whether they'll do the same. The answer tells you a lot.
Start with a Discovery Sprint.
A 60-minute scoping conversation. We walk through your current Copilot deployment, the workflows that are eating your team's time, the funders or board members asking about AI, and your Microsoft Funding eligibility.
If Launchpad isn't the right next step yet, we tell you what is. No pressure to commit on the call.
Not ready for a sprint? Read more about the six Agent Kits, explore the full AI Practice ladder, or email us at sales@centerednetworks.com.
Thanks, we've got it.
A senior member of our team will reply within one business day to set up your Discovery Sprint scoping call.
Microsoft alignment
A Data and AI-designated partner.
AI agent deployment sits squarely in the Data and AI designation: building, governing, and operating intelligent workloads on Microsoft 365 and Azure. We also hold the Modern Work designation, which matters here because Microsoft 365 Copilot and Agent 365 are the foundation every Launchpad engagement runs on.
- Microsoft Solutions Partner for Data and AI
- Microsoft Solutions Partner for Modern Work
- Microsoft Copilot Deployment Accelerator eligible
- Microsoft Agent 365 governance from day one
- Open Repo Promise: every artifact stays in your tenant
- Three structural guarantees on every engagement