Nowhere is this more evident than within the Lloyd’s Market, where Insurtech companies are redefining underwriting, claims and customer experiences through digital innovation.

Tackling operational efficiency and processing capacity for claims and other workflows remains a key focus for the industry, one that is well-suited to the advancements we’re seeing with today’s Large Language Models (LLMs) and agents.¹ 

With Microsoft’s cloud and AI technologies underpinning many of these Insurtech solutions, innovation is accelerating in three crucial areas:

• Transforming the policyholder experience
• Modernising risk and compliance
• Transforming core insurance systems

The result is that Insurtech innovators are boosting productivity, accelerating time to market and enhancing collaboration and engagement. 

As the industry adapts to new economic realities, regulatory pressures and customer expectations, Insurtech companies exemplify the innovative spirit that positions 2025 as a big year for digital transformation. A recent generative AI study² for the insurance market suggests that nine out of 10 insurers plan to invest in generative AI over the coming year in their bid to achieve more. 

Transforming risk placement and underwriting

Notwithstanding their unique respective operations, PPL and InsurX are both leaders in driving value-chain efficiency and modernising processes that support smooth risk placing and processing in the London Market. 

Enhancing collaboration 

PPL is advancing the London Market’s digital placing capability with a new trading hub built on Microsoft technologies. The move will speed the company’s transition from a document-led, administrative placing process to a a new e-trading and data hub built on Microsoft’s cloud and AI technologies.

The collaboration is set to enable: 

• Powerful and actionable broker and carrier insight delivered by bespoke PPL Copilot prompts. These will empower users to compare, analyse and gain insight in real time to inform next actions.   
• End-to-end trading data housed in an intelligent Microsoft Fabric-powered data hub. This will provide PPL clients with easy access to structured, secure and rich data to inform and support business decisions. 

These advancements create an agile digital marketplace that fosters collaboration and efficiency at the heart of the Lloyd’s Market. 

Revolutionising underwriting 

InsurX ’s mission is to modernise the complex $1.2 trillion commercial underwriting industry for the 21^st century. Part of the Lloyd’s Lab accelerator programme in 2022, the company has developed a two-sided digital exchange that allows brokers and insurers to algorithmically trade insurance risks. 

The live exchange now includes over 50 enterprise insurers and brokers, and is set to trade $1 billion in premiums by 2026. By leveraging Microsoft Azure, InsurX’s technology enables brokers and underwriters to:  

• Define risk appetite: underwriters can tailor algorithmic rules to their precise risk criteria.  
• Match risks to rules: brokers find capacity in minutes as the InsurX matching engine cross-references their submissions against rules. 
• Sign contracts automatically: InsurX then binds policies and delivers high-quality reporting to all parties. 

 Ultimately, InsurX seeks to streamline insurance risk-processing, making it faster, more efficient and more cost-effective for brokers and underwriters. 

Outwards reinsurance reinvented

Cenata is a pioneering business focused on outwards reinsurance and committed to driving change and improving operational outcomes at a global level. Cenata has developed a game-changing solution called CenataSure, an Azure-based outwards reinsurance management platform, which underpins and futureproofs its growing client base.

By leveraging Microsoft Azure data services, the CenataSure platform enables insurers to better manage reinsurance risks and compliance, and leverage opportunity across the London and international markets.  

The platform delivers powerful insight from extremely large insurance datasets, enabling business performance optimisation. With Azure CosmosDB and Synapse Analytics in play, Cenata can also scale exceptional performance for organisations of all sizes by enabling:   

• Granular insight: a real-time picture of reinsurance premium and claims position for proactive decision making, all to outstanding levels of detail. 
• Complex calculation automation: detailed automation at scale, delivering frictionless straight-through processing with no manual intervention. 
• Regulatory compliance: automating statutory reporting, such as QMA, SRS and schedule F reports, to streamline operations.  

Cenata partners with global services organisations such as Synpulse, a ceded insurance specialist, to deliver large-scale transformation projects – and at the core of each project is CenataSure.

Transforming the policyholder experience 

In the digital-first world, customers demand hyper-personalised experiences. Peppercorn AI, powered by Microsoft Azure, has emerged as a leader in delivering these tailored experiences for insurance customers through its specialist conversational AI platform, Pipr.  

By leveraging Azure’s Cognitive and Azure Open AI services, the Pipr platform can:  

• Provide instant, highly intuitive responses to customer inquiries through AI, powered by its digital conversational assistant. 
• Amend and update policy information within individual customer profiles in real-time. 
• Deliver highly personalised guidance based on customer needs and behaviours. 

PeppercornAI is also leveraging generative AI to improve risk selection for the insurance provider. While recognising possible quote manipulation, it also provides a better informed, personalised customer experience – a win-win strategy. 

The UK Insurtech sector remains strong 

The UK is currently home to the world’s second largest Insurtech cluster and has produced eight “unicorns” (companies valued at more than $1 billion). This is more than the rest of Europe combined.³  More widely, the sector makes a significant contribution of almost £5 billion to the UK economy (GDP) and supports 60,000 jobs across the UK. 

This impressive achievement positions Insurtech not only as a vital economic contributor but also as a global leader in innovation. By continuing to harness Microsoft AI and data-driven solutions, the sector is well-positioned to drive growth, create jobs and shape the future of insurance. 

For its part, Microsoft is committed to providing efficient tools and platforms to advance industry innovation and empower strong collaboration for both physical and digital interactions. 

Discover the power of partnership 

ISV Success, part of our Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme, will give you all the support and guidance you need on the Microsoft Cloud. You can also gain free Azure credits, developer tools, app consultations and much more.   

If you’re an Insurtech company looking for support with AI innovation and go-to-market, please reach out to our UK ISV team or find out more by visiting the Microsoft ISV Hub.

Footnotes

¹ Transform Insurance Industry Workflows Using Generative AI Models and Azure Services | Microsoft Community Hub 

² Your journey to a GenAI future: An insurer’s strategic path to success 

³ Insurtech UK Roadmap 2024 

Find out more

Join our ISV Success Programme

About the author

As the Insurtech partner lead for Microsoft UK, George helps Insurance B2B software companies innovate with Microsoft’s Cloud and AI platforms, and reach new customers together. He has more than 13 years’ experience working in the Microsoft Partner ecosystem, most recently helping Fintechs drive successful commercial partnerships with Microsoft.

The post 2025: the year of data and AI innovation in UK Insurtech  appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

With the South West emerging as a vibrant tech hub, our Exeter stop was a fitting location to showcase AI’s transformative potential. 

Exploring the AI opportunity 

In my keynote, I discussed the immense opportunity AI presents to the UK public sector. Studies suggest that AI adoption could save the UK £17 billion by 2035. I highlighted real-world applications, from NHS clinicians detecting cancers earlier to local councils reducing air pollution, underscoring the need for bold leadership to embrace these technologies. 

Beyond financial savings, I emphasised how AI is enabling public servants to refocus on their core mission – serving citizens more effectively, while setting new standards in efficiency and innovation. 

The South West itself is a model of regional innovation. With over 18,000 tech companies and an annual tech investment of £454 million, it demonstrates how local initiatives can drive national impact.  

The Met Office’s pioneering work is a prime example. Using Microsoft Azure’s supercomputing-as-a-service, the Met Office optimises weather predictions, helping communities better prepare for extreme weather and supporting climate resilience.  

Richard Bevan, CTO at the Met Office, shared intriguing insights into how AI, including the groundbreaking Fastnet prediction tool, is transforming weather forecasting. Developed in partnership with the Alan Turing Institute, Fastnet leverages AI to refine temperature predictions and bridge gaps in oceanic data – a vital resource for tackling climate change.  

Richard also highlighted recent adoption figures for Microsoft Copilot at the Met Office.

“With Microsoft Copilot saving an average 27 minutes daily per user, we can focus more on the higher-value tasks.”

Richard Bevan, CTO, Met Office

This suggests the powerful role AI can play in not only improving operational efficiency but also enhancing productivity in the sector. 

Nurturing AI readiness and innovation 

The event also featured a thought-provoking panel discussion with leaders such as Professor Kirstine Dale (Chief Data & AI Officer at the Met Office), Dr John McCormick (CCIO at NHS Devon ICB) and David Baker (Head of Automation and Technology at Shropshire Council). 

Together, they explored pressing topics like information governance, accessibility and workforce skilling. Kirstine’s observation that “it’s all about people and communication” resonated deeply, reminding us that successful AI adoption centres around empowerment and requires keeping citizens and employees at the heart of every decision. 

Equipping public sector professionals with the skills to harness AI was another recurring theme. My colleague Paul Griffiths, Public Sector Skills Lead at Microsoft UK, shared data highlighting that 75% of workers are already using AI tools.  

As Paul noted, however, significant gaps in readiness remain. This underlines the importance of skills initiatives, such as LinkedIn Learning and TechHer. LinkedIn Learning has to date empowered over 80 million learners globally with AI-related skills, while TechHer helps women across the UK gain technical skills to advance their careers. This Microsoft programme has trained nearly 4,000 women in government to date, and you can register your interest for TechHer 2025 today. 

Looking ahead, the role of AI in the public sector is clear. From clearing NHS backlogs to making cities more sustainable, AI has the potential to reimagine how services are delivered. However, realising this vision requires robust infrastructure, strong governance and a commitment to empowering public servants with the tools and training they need to succeed.  

How is your organisation preparing for AI adoption? I’d love to hear your thoughts on how AI is transforming public sector services. 

Find out more

• Register for the Microsoft AI Tour in London on March 5, 2025
• Visit the Microsoft UK AI Hub for real-life customer stories, events and resources
• Assess your AI readiness today 

About the author

Robin has 20 years of experience in Microsoft and local public services, with deep expertise in the local government and housing sectors. His technology background helps align emerging tech with sector priorities, driving innovation in services and resident outcomes. He has worked on many shared services and unitary council mergers, and is passionate about using AI and reform to modernise processes. Robin leads Microsoft’s Local Public Services team, driving transformation across the sector.

The post Driving innovation in the UK public sector with AI    appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

The GenAI Accelerator provides comprehensive support for the chosen firms, including technical guidance and exclusive go-to-market opportunities that will help them reach new customers and accelerate revenue streams, with dedicated support from WeTransact.  

These 12 companies were selected from over 300 applications, reflecting an acceptance rate of less than 4%. They were chosen by a panel of Microsoft and programme partners for the strength of their idea, technical readiness, customer reach and future aspirations.  

Meet the 12 GenAI innovators 

• Atla helps developers find AI mistakes at scale, empowering them to build more reliable GenAI applications. LLMs reach their full potential only when they consistently produce safe and useful results. Atla trains models to catch mistakes, monitor AI performance and understand critical failure modes, so developers can fix them.
• Auquan is generative AI for automating deep knowledge work in finance. One-quarter of the top 20 global asset managers, investment banks and private equity firms use Auquan to empower their best people to focus on high impact work, make better-informed strategic decisions faster, and outperform.
• AutogenAI uses advanced AI technology to streamline the complex bid process. Our solution empowers large enterprises to submit high-quality, winning bids while minimising resource needs and time investment.  
• Aveni AI develops advanced AI solutions specifically for the financial services industry, combining deep sector expertise with the latest innovations in Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology. Our specialised NLP models address complex regulatory challenges, enhancing compliance, efficiency and performance. Trusted by industry leaders, Aveni is redefining what’s possible in financial services, delivering solutions that drive value across the entire operating model of an advice business.
• DeepSearch Labs focuses on AI-powered document analysis and data extraction. Its tools enable businesses to process and understand complex datasets efficiently, supporting research, compliance and strategic decision-making.
• Faradai is a decarbonisation intelligence company, providing enterprise AI software for digitising, automating and supercharging net-zero efforts. By combining granular data, advanced machine learning algorithms and deep sustainability expertise, Faradai provides real-time data acquisition, data management, compliance, and reporting tools to help large companies manage their carbon emissions and ESG performance, and decarbonise their business operations and supply chains.
• Haiper.ai is an AI platform for visual content creation, building its own visual foundation models. Haiper’s newly launched 2.5 model sets a new industry standard for quality, enabling its 6 million-plus users and enterprise customers to generate hyper-realistic videos and images faster than ever before.
• RevEng.AI is building foundation AI models for detecting security threats and weakness inside binary software. Our AIaaS platform helps malware analysts and security engineers identify malicious components and verify the security of software supply chains when partial or no source code is available. 
• SentiSum leverages Generative AI to transform large-scale consumer feedback and customer care data into actionable insights. Scanning every interaction in real-time, SentiSum makes insights as simple as asking questions, helping global brands like Gousto, Ticketmaster and BAT to identify and prioritise fixes that improve customer experience, retention and product strategies. 
• Soter has been a global leader in AI solutions since 2017, revolutionising risk management, workplace safety and compliance for industrial and insurance sectors. Its SoterAI platform uses proprietary real-time analysis of images, videos and data to quickly identify risks and deliver actionable solutions, setting new standards for AI-powered safety and productivity.
• TurinTech represents the evolution of AI with Artemis, a next-generation Code Optimisation Platform that goes beyond traditional AI code generation tools. While others stop at generating functional code, Artemis delivers fully optimised, production-ready solutions by combining agentic workflows, genetic algorithms and real-time validation – unlocking faster innovation, reduced costs and enterprise-grade reliability.
• Vortex IQ powers 140+ enterprises and partners with BigCommerce, Shopify, Adobe Commerce and Magento, offering a Vertical AI Agent Platform for Ecommerce with over 70 AI agents translating insights to actions. These agents optimise every e-commerce job role – from manager to developer – driving innovation and growth for enterprise merchants worldwide. 

Empowering innovation and driving impact 

Our brief descriptions show how these companies are driving industry-wide innovation by applying AI to solve complex problems. Their solutions enhance efficiency, streamline workflows and unlock new business opportunities. From advancing data analysis and automation to optimising decision-making and operations, they are enabling smarter, faster and more impactful outcomes.

In early 2025, each company in the cohort will receive tailored mentorship, cloud resources and access to world-class experts. Their journey will culminate in a showcase event, hosted at the Microsoft Experience Centre in London, where participants will present their solutions. 

Learn more about partnering with us

Explore programmes and resources that can help you build, innovate and scale your AI solutions with Microsoft and our partners.

• Register for the upcoming GenAI Lab – a one-hour virtual event on building AI solutions and go-to-market with Microsoft. 

• Visit Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub – get up to USD 150,000 of Azure credits to put towards a wide range of AI models, including Azure OpenAI Service, Meta Llama and Microsoft’s own Phi small language models. 

• Join Microsoft ISV Success – innovate and go to market faster, with exclusive benefits across cloud credits, developer tools and more. 

• Join NVIDIA Inception for Startups – a free programme designed to help startups evolve faster through cutting-edge technology, opportunities to connect with venture capitalists and access to the latest technical resources from NVIDIA. Learn more and apply via the link.

Looking ahead 

As AI continues to revolutionise industries and redefine what’s possible, these 12 companies are leading the charge. At Microsoft, we are proud to partner with such visionary innovators, helping them bring their ideas to life and scale their impact. Stay tuned for updates on their progress as they help shape the future of technology. 

About the author

After gaining 25 years’ experience in the technology consulting sector, including leadership roles at Accenture across Software as a Service, Cloud First Applications and Salesforce Business for the UK & Ireland, Orla joined Microsoft in March 2021 to lead the Global Partner Solutions organisation. She oversees Microsoft’s UK partner ecosystem, which includes independent software vendors, advisory partners, systems integrators, telcos, and channel partners. Orla also serves on the Microsoft UK Senior Leadership Team.

The post Announcing the 12 companies selected for the Microsoft UK GenAI Accelerator  appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Our ecosystem offers you a rare chance to create and sell impactful solutions with the latest technologies. In this blog, we’ll explore key areas of ISV opportunity and share stories of innovative partners that have unlocked new possibilities with Microsoft.

Build, innovate and scale with Azure Cloud 

The shift to cloud computing is undeniable, with the cloud’s agility, scalability and economics propelling cloud spend to a projected $1 trillion by 2026. According to the IDC, Microsoft partners that build software earn $10.11 for every $1 of Microsoft revenue. Two compelling reasons to adopt the Microsoft Azure platform and sell through our commercial marketplace.

While Azure offers a secure and scalable foundation for developing and deploying high-performance software solutions, our marketplace helps you simplify sales and unlock growth.  Azure’s comprehensive suite of tools and services also allow you to rapidly build, innovate and scale operations seamlessly, all while reducing costs. By partnering with us, you’re better able to meet market demands swiftly, ensuring you remain competitive and relevant. 

These benefits have been harnessed by AutoRek, a financial reconciliation software provider that specialises in automated reconciliation, financial reporting and data management solutions. They help financial institutions streamline processes, ensure regulatory compliance and improve overall operational efficiency.

In partnership with Microsoft, AutoRek has built a scalable, secure and efficient solution on Azure that can handle vast amounts of data and perform real-time reconciliation. This enables its customers to improve their financial accuracy and significantly cut operational costs. The AutoRek platform is available now on the Azure Marketplace. 

Drive innovation in the era of AI with the latest tools and models 

Generative AI is also revolutionising business models and creating new ISV opportunities. By infusing Azure AI capabilities into your solutions and developing your own copilot with Microsoft Copilot Studio, you can drive significant innovation and differentiation. This solution enables you to offer enhanced functionalities, improve customer experiences and unlock new revenue streams.

By leveraging our AI expertise, you can significantly transform your offerings and capture new market segments. Discover how other innovative partners are leaping ahead with Microsoft AI and Azure-powered technologies: 

• Stability AI, a leader in open-source generative AI, creates models that excel in areas such as imaging, video, audio and 3D, delivering top-tier performance and minimal resource requirements. The company is now extending them through Azure’s AI model catalogue. Coming soon as a “Model as a Service” (MaaS) offering, users can leverage pay-as-you-go inference APIs and self-hosted models, including fine-tuning that makes high-quality AI more accessible and customisable than ever before. 

• BeyondWords is an AI audio platform building voice-cloning, audio-generation, distribution and monetisation tools for modern news publishers. By partnering with Microsoft Azure, BeyondWords has been able to build a robust, scalable solution that handles high-volume content while maintaining top-notch audio quality. This collaboration allows news and insights publishers to create frictionless audio experiences, boosting audience engagement and unlocking new revenue streams. 

• The Access Group  is a leading provider of industry-focused solutions to small and mid-sized organisations in Europe, the USA and Asia. In addition to AI-supported workflows, their innovative Access Evo copilot feature intelligently connects users to business-wide software, offering a personalised generative assistant that saves time and ensures data security. Users can ask questions and get instant responses, enhancing productivity and efficiency. 

Accelerate your business revenue with the cloud marketplace 

Today’s digital transformation has sparked a new “Buy vs. Build” revolution, with more organizations favouring ready-made SaaS solutions over custom software development.  

Cloud marketplaces simplify this new buying behaviour by enabling ISVs to provision solutions quickly and reliably, while serving as a critical go-to-market channel. Canalys predicts that cloud marketplaces will exceed $45 billion in value by 2025, driven by new governance models and streamlined procurement processes.  

Our Azure Marketplace is at the forefront of this trend, giving you a global platform to showcase and sell your solutions. It also simplifies the buying process for customers, making it easier for them to discover, purchase and deploy your solutions.  

In addition, your customers can leverage existing Azure Cloud Committed budgets when buying software, which contributes 100% off a customer Azure Marketplace invoice. So why not reach a broader audience and accelerate your GTM strategy by listing your offerings on Azure Marketplace?  

Get inspired by other partners who are succeeding with this strategy: 

• Quantexa is a global AI, data, and analytics software company pioneering decision intelligence to empower organizations with the right data to make the right AI-enabled decisions. The company brings innovation and confidence in decision-making to every industry by driving the shift to contextual data. Quantexa recently announced its Decision Intelligence Platform on the Azure Marketplace, which enables organizations to unify siloed data, create context with knowledge graphs, and put data to work using AI and analytics to drive effective decision-making and automation throughout the enterprise. 

• UiPath offers AI-powered automation solutions to boost enterprise productivity and streamline business processes. With its comprehensive platform, companies can discover, build and operate automation at enterprise-scale. Buying UiPath Automation Cloud via the Microsoft marketplace gives customers access to the latest UiPath platform technology. In addition, Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) customers can simplify their procurement by using their existing Azure commitment and payment conditions. 

Multiply your reach and offerings through our partner ecosystem 

In search of longer-term value, ISVs are exploring new technology partnerships and business efficiencies. A multiplier effect occurs when they collaborate with the extensive Microsoft channel partner ecosystem to create multiparty private offers (MPOs).

MPOs on Azure Marketplace enable ISVs to include their preferred partners in deals, streamlining procurement and enhancing customer satisfaction. This enhances the value proposition for all involved.  

Our Partner Network nurtures these collaborations, enabling ISVs to co-innovate and co-sell solutions. By joining our rich ecosystem, you can leverage complementary strengths, expand your market reach, and deliver more comprehensive solutions to your customers.  

Here are just two examples of how our collaborative approach has helped other partners drive sustained value and innovation, and ensured mutual growth and success.

Leveraging the Microsoft Channel Partner ecosystem: Nutanix and Computacenter 

Recently, Nutanix and Computacenter collaborated on an MPO for a global customer, migrating workloads to Azure and implementing self-service automation for workload provisioning. This successful collaboration highlights the value of MPOs in driving efficient transactions and fostering strong partnerships. 

Building marketplace and adoption practices with partners: Veritas and Softcat 

Partners such as Softcat are developing robust marketplace practices to drive application modernisation using Azure Marketplace and MPOs. By helping customers holistically adopt Azure Marketplace as a transformation mechanism, Softcat delivers agility and innovation while maintaining governance and guardrails.  

Softcat and Veritas recently collaborated with a UK law firm to modernise the customer’s data management strategy using the Veritas Alta archiving solution on Azure. This showcased how Softcat used MPOs to manage billing and deliver cloud SaaS technology from Veritas, ensuring maximum value and business efficiency for all stakeholders involved. 

Discover the power of partnership

Whether you’re an ISV or a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company – and whatever the size and maturity of your business – partnering with us can empower you to succeed. ISV Success, part of our Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme, will give you all the support and guidance you need on the Microsoft Cloud. You can also gain free Azure credits, developer tools, app consultations and much more.  

Interested in registering? Please visit the ISV Hub, or if your headquarters are in the UK, email ISVUK@Microsoft.com. 

Find out more

Learn more about partnering with Microsoft

Build and publish with ISV Success (part of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme)

Get started with Azure for ISVs

About the author

After gaining 25 years’ experience in the technology consulting sector, including leadership roles at Accenture across Software as a Service, Cloud First Applications and Salesforce Business for the UK & Ireland, Orla joined Microsoft in March 2021 to lead the Global Partner Solutions organisation. She oversees Microsoft’s UK partner ecosystem, which includes independent software vendors, advisory partners, systems integrators, telcos, and channel partners. Orla also serves on the Microsoft UK Senior Leadership Team.

The post Unlock the AI and SaaS opportunity in partnership with Microsoft  appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

The legal services industry in the UK has historically been one of the largest in the world, with UK legal industry revenue expected to grow to almost £40bn by 2028. But the sector is in a state of flux as US law firms look to grow market share in the UK and Europe, while a report by Thomson Reuters on the UK legal market suggests it is becoming harder to stand out as legal work becomes commoditised. In addition, a growing number of UK clients are looking to keep more activity in-house to improve efficiency and cost savings.

Multinational, newly merged law firm A&O Shearman is one company innovating to stay ahead – part of its mission is to be the world’s most advanced in its sector. An integral part of this is delivering legal services in new and flexible ways and optimising technology. This drive prompted the organisation to become an early adopter of AI, allowing it to successfully carve out a competitive advantage in a traditional industry.

As David Wakeling, partner and head of A&O Shearman’s Markets Innovation Group (MIG), explains, the company started its generative AI journey in November 2022, when it began trialling a generative AI tool designed for law firms, named Harvey. “As lawyers, we’re extremely focused on risk management. My team and I looked at generative AI, and we quickly realised it was going to be really disruptive for the global legal industry, as well as carrying with it quite a lot of risks.”

When deploying Harvey, Wakeling and his team focused on the governance needed to enable safe deployment. They introduced a feedback loop to understand how lawyers were using the AI tool, as well as to capture any concerns they had or challenges they were experiencing. “We did an incremental rollout, piece by piece, and developed governance around deployment, to ensure that it was done responsibly and in a way that was trustworthy. We made it our objective to roll it out to 2,000 lawyers across 43 jurisdictions by Christmas Eve 2022.”

The feedback from lawyers painted a very clear picture: “We could quickly see that this technology was going to augment, rather than displace the lawyer,” says Wakeling. “AI can ‘hallucinate’ – bringing up incorrect or misleading results – meaning that human decision-making and judgement, tailored to the specific industry sector in which the lawyer operates, is paramount.”

After the successful trial, the technology was integrated into the firm’s global practice, making A&O Shearman the first firm in the world to deploy generative AI at enterprise level.

A productive partnership

This led A&O Shearman to partner with Microsoft and Harvey to develop its own generative AI contract negotiation tool that leveraged its unique company knowledge. “We wanted to create an AI tool for lawyers that streamlined contract review and negotiation, while also managing the risk of hallucinations. We did this by grounding the AI output in high quality ‘benches’ of legal knowledge – in other words, a bank of gold standard precedents. We wanted to make sure the lawyer had a really good work product, which is quality assured,” says Wakeling. The result was ContractMatrix.

Wakeling says lawyers have long worked in Microsoft Word, meaning that they are familiar with the Microsoft environment. “We made ContractMatrix a Word add-in because we wanted it to be operated from the natural workspace of the lawyer. The idea is you hit the app, ContractMatrix opens, and your benches and previous deals are immediately accessible to you. It was so logical to build it in that environment.”

The tool speeds up many manual tasks, associated with drafting contracts, that a lawyer usually undertakes during their working day. “No one went to law school for manual process exercises – this is about enabling lawyers to focus on tasks that require strategic thinking and decision-making,” says Wakeling. “From a business perspective, it’s more productive and more efficient.”

The firm currently has more than 1,000 of its lawyers using ContractMatrix, and Wakeling estimates that the tool saves seven hours on average for each contract review, which is a productivity gain of about 30%. “That’s pretty significant,” he adds.

One of the biggest advantages afforded by ContractMatrix is the ability to access gold standard precedents in seconds. “We can find precedent contracts and bring those up to the screen with a couple of prompts of an AI engine,” says Wakeling. “That is huge for lawyers because the whole legal system is based on precedent, so if you can get the best precedents quickly, that is extremely impactful.”

ContractMatrix runs on Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, which was an additional pull for partnering with Microsoft. As John O’Donovan, chief technology officer at A&O Shearman, explains, the law firm has a large IT infrastructure and a huge amount of information based in existing data centres. “It’s quite an intimidating job for a law firm to manage and organise such a vast infrastructure; you really need to be in the data centre business.”

Centralising technology with Azure

The opportunity to move its infrastructure into Microsoft Azure’s cloud computing platform enabled A&O Shearman to centralise its technology. “When you build things in an on-premise environment, you have to buy lots of infrastructure, such as new servers, and that restricts you. By moving from on-premise to a cloud environment, you can scale quickly and easily according to your needs.”

This also enabled A&O Shearman to scale ContractMatrix as software as a service for client and wider market use. As Wakeling says, this has presented a unique opportunity for the law firm to differentiate itself with, what is effectively, a new business. “We’re a law firm focused on the deployment of legal AI to clients, with Microsoft as the common infrastructure of delivery. Clients know how to use Microsoft Azure and we can deploy it for clients’ in-house legal functions through that environment, so it is very enabling.”

O’Donovan adds that lawyers rely on Microsoft’s suite of tools – such as SharePoint and OneDrive – in their everyday work, and this creates further opportunities for A&O Shearman to build on that within the wider Azure environment. “Microsoft has really invested in legal technology in the last couple of years, and we see that in the use of other tools like Power BI [a data visualisation tool augmented by AI]. So we can use those platforms to build customised tools and workflows for our firm and our clients – we’re not having to develop them from scratch. We are also able to help Microsoft to make products more relevant to the legal market, so it’s a mutually beneficial partnership.”

A&O Shearman has invested heavily in improving the firm’s technology capability over the years. The company ramped this up when generative AI appeared. “We hired loads of developers and added some data scientists, but we also realised we needed to upskill certain functions,” says Wakeling. “Our risk committee needed to be upskilled, as did some of our board members. All members of our risk committee now consider AI in their day-to-day work.”

The firm’s investment in generative AI touches everyone in the company, from marketing and finance to project managers, and the technology is transforming the business. “AI provides some very generic capabilities, such as using Copilot for Microsoft 365 [a Microsoft AI assistant designed to enhance business productivity] to take and distribute meeting notes,” says O’Donovan. “People used to have to do these things manually, so there are some simple, huge efficiencies being gained.

“But our use of AI now goes all the way through to augmenting the very specific skills and knowledge of our lawyers. ContractMatrix, which was made by our lawyers, for lawyers, is a prime example of this.”

A&O Shearman’s integration of AI has also prompted it to overhaul its graduate recruitment process, chiefly by asking graduates questions around AI, such as how they would write the prompts if they were given a certain research task. “We’re looking at their logic and prompt engineering,” says Wakeling. “And then we’re saying: ‘How do you validate the output and look for errors?’ So we’re asking them for a different skill set right from the beginning of their careers. We’re thinking about what’s going to make graduates good lawyers in the coming decades – it’s no longer about learning by rote; it’s more strategic.”

The innovation doesn’t stop there. Allen & Overy’s very recent merger with Shearman & Sterling has also been enabled by working with Microsoft, helping with the integration of systems and data. For example, O’Donovan cites Microsoft’s cross-tenant synchronisation capability, which allowed A&O Shearman to reroute the two legacy firms’ companies email addresses to the new email domain, as well as manage communication between the two organisations through Teams.

“These technologies have been invaluable in taking two large law firms and bringing them together,” he says. “A lot of work is required in a merger, which usually takes years, but we’ve been able to do some things fairly quickly by taking advantage of these technologies.”

Wakeling and his team are looking at opportunities to apply generative AI beyond contract negotiation, such as to due diligence, litigation discovery and mergers and acquisitions. “That’s where we’re starting to turn our attention,” he says.

A&O Shearman’s unique experience of developing and deploying AI systems also means that a large number of clients have approached it for advice on how to deploy AI safely within their businesses. “Since last summer, we have had incredible demand from clients for our global expertise on the key issues around AI deployment, as well as for advice on AI-related disputes, AI collaboration agreements and AI-focused transactions. Our tech expertise on building and deploying AI systems, unusually, sits at the centre of our AI legal advisory group. This is so valuable as clients want to know what responsible AI looks like in practice.”

Wakeling adds that it is likely that future apps his team develops will be devised in tandem with Microsoft. “It has certainly set a very good precedent for how one of the best tech companies can work very successfully with one of the best law firms.”

Read more Microsoft customer success stories

Explore the Microsoft UK AI Hub

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A pioneer in the insurance comparison industry, today, Confused.com serves millions of consumers a year, helping them find the best prices to protect the things they love, power their homes and finance big purchases. At a time of rising living costs and economic uncertainty, consumers are increasingly seeking informed, trusted advice that enables them to make confident financial decisions. According to Mintel, 73% of UK adults have used a financial comparison website within the past year as they strive to find the best deals on financial products quickly and easily.

In such an aggressive and fast-moving sector, Confused.com must continually deliver a superior customer experience to maintain its competitive edge. This relies on understanding exactly what customers need and why, to ease anxiety so often associated with financial decisions. Being truly customer-centric is reliant on optimising data, as Nick Sharp, director of data and technology, Confused.com, explains: “Delivering a seamless customer journey, enabling real-time interactions, personalised experiences, and offering a range of tooling beyond the price comparison itself is all about being data-led. It’s about making decisions based on data insights.”

Confused.com’s traditional in-house data framework was frustrating this ambition. “When you have an on-premises infrastructure and simple integrations, you are dealing with silos,” says Sharp. “We wanted to bring that together to deliver a more cohesive customer journey. Making financial decisions can be overwhelming – our aim is to reduce that burden as much as possible.”

Working with a trusted partner

This need prompted the company to seek help from long-term partner Microsoft, which also works with many of Confused.com’s partners, giving it peace of mind that the technology company understood how it wanted to enhance customers’ experience. Confused.com chose to migrate to Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, a solution that enables it to manage and store its data securely, as well as giving it access to multiple applications, services and tools. “Microsoft’s maturity and range of assets made it appealing,” says Sharp. “The cost element was important too, as well as the huge support offered by Microsoft, which made it a very easy six-month migration.”

The migration to Azure, and becoming cloud native, has initiated a culture shift at Confused.com, putting technology at the forefront of the business and allowing it to innovate and challenge the market. “It focused minds on how technology could enable us to go beyond delivering the basic service and actually scale up what we were doing, helping us to derive greater insight and make a bigger difference to customers,” says Sharp. “It has empowered us to position ourselves as thought leaders, and that mindset is driving success.”

Considering Confused.com’s panel of partners was key to the decision. The company’s motor panel alone currently has more than 150 providers, and the numerous data feeds between customers and partners need to be robust and fast. “That was a driving factor for choosing Azure, as well as the ability to experiment, and scale,” says Sharp. “It was also about leveraging cloud technology and Azure’s out-of-the-box and customisable solutions.”

As Sharp says: “If we get the right message to the right customer at the right time, they are so much more likely to buy.” It was this need to deliver exactly what the customer is looking for at any given moment that also attracted Confused.com to Azure. Its generative AI enables companies to quickly build intelligent apps and scale them, training them to work with its customer data. “That is really where we’re seeing the uplift,” says Sharp.

For Confused.com, the technology has supercharged its marketing, improving spend by 10% through data enrichment and personalised offers and recommendations. “That relevance to customers shows we’re getting things right.”

Sharp adds that the integration of AI aligns with the company’s commitment to being a customer champion. “By leveraging AI for personalised services and gaining insights into customer needs, we can continue disrupting the insurance industry for the benefit of our customers.”

After all, people visit Confused.com seeking advice and reassurance. “For example, can we make any recommendations based on the information a customer has provided? If they are actively telling us they are interested in a product, or if there are any nuances we can respond to, we can be extra helpful,” says Sharp. “It allows us to anticipate what customers need and potentially save them even more time and money by alerting them to the most relevant product at the right time and at competitive prices.”

A key part of elevating technology to a more central role was using Azure’s AI capability to automate, freeing employees from repetitive tasks to focus on what Sharp describes as “the more gnarly stuff”. He says: “We can tackle the problems that haven’t been solved for customers – that’s where we can really add value – making that content relevant and personalised, and unearthing insights.”

Sharp adds that the impact of Azure goes beyond the company’s technologists. “All of our employees benefit from AI – ultimately it helps them to do their job better, spending more time helping customers to save money, and adding greater value.”

While use of Azure’s AI tools doesn’t remove the need for human input, Sharp says it is hugely valuable for generating ideas and starting conversations, as well as improving efficiencies. “It allows us to worry less about the infrastructure provisioning and scaling because that is all taken care of. Both AI and the cloud keep us operating at speed and meeting customer demand – that is where it matters and where we want our team spending their time.”

Reaping measurable benefits in the cloud

Since implementing Azure, Confused.com has reduced its analytics lead time by 50%, thanks to improved availability, speed, and richness of data, which is driving informed decisions. This benefits customers directly. “Customers rely on us for timely data products and services, they are not just simply getting a price,” says Sharp. “We are looking at the full customer journey, identifying friction points and experimenting and addressing them quickly, and we are able to swiftly respond to customer feedback.”

The company’s ceaseless drive to add value to customers has also been realised by Azure, allowing the company to introduce cashback and rewards, which are customised incentives rooted in data. “We are now able to give much more back to customers and make sure the experience is optimum,” says Sharp. “That additional capability has been enabled by our migration to Azure.”

Confused.com has big plans to continue building on its partnership with Microsoft and its success with Azure, and Sharp says it will carry on leveraging Microsoft’s latest off-the-shelf components and solutions to solve problems. “It’s a gamechanger knowing we don’t have to build everything ourselves or find our own solutions. We can tap into the expertise of a partner that truly understands our industry.”

He adds that the “ultimate dream” is simplification of the customer journey: “The more we can remove the friction points, the closer we can get to automatic switching. It’s great from a technology stance but it’s also great from a customer stance too. With so many people feeling the pinch at the moment, where people spend their money is important. So for us, saving people time, money and allowing them to make confident decisions, at no cost to them, is now more important than ever.”

Azure’s cloud and AI capabilities are playing a key role in ensuring that Confused.com remains dominant in a fierce market. “It is amazing being fully cloud native, and AI promises to be a very exciting next chapter,” says Sharp.

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There’s a funny and rather apt “spot the difference” Microsoft Visual Studio advert that used to run in computing magazines.

On the left of the image is the desk of an “unhappy” software developer. It’s the middle of the night; beneath the gaze of a single desk lamp, piles of screwed up paper litter the scene, and yellow sticky notes hang off the computer screen.

The right-hand side shows the “happy” software developer’s desk, clean and neat, with a calendar full of social appointments and a sunny day outside.

The message was clear: if developers used C++, a popular programming language that can develop software, no matter the platform, they would reduce their stress.

Almost 20 years later, technologies have moved on, yet software developers continue to face many of the same challenges – how do you handle the entire lifecycle of creating a product for your customer, from designing the software, getting it to work and making it secure, to deploying and maintaining the finished product?

Scaling up and down is frictionless

Cloud platforms can make the life of a developer much easier – from planning, writing, editing and debugging their code, through to delivering it live to their customers – even when they’re not sure what the final demands are likely to be.

Previously, once software firms delivered applications and services to their customers, they would have to guess how much infrastructure they needed to support the delivery and maintenance of the product.

This problem could be further compounded by the fact that the customer might also be struggling to keep up with widely fluctuating demand from its end users.

Azure’s scalable cloud platform remedies this by hosting the developer’s software and automatically scaling as demand decreases or increases, so that developers can concentrate on what they do best – software development.

Take the case of Live Tech Games (LTG), for example. The company faced challenges supporting 10,000 users playing its live football tournament multiplayer mobile games concurrently online, and needed to increase that number to 500,000 users.

“During the 2022 Fifa World Cup, in partnership with ITV, we ran more than 30 live tournament games with thousands of players joining and playing against each other all at once – and thanks to Azure, everything ran perfectly,” said LTG’s co-founder and co-CEO Samuel Worsley.

Developing and debugging can be done all in one place

Software development is a complex process, especially when you have many cooks involved and everyone, including your boss, has a different idea of which coding language the software should be written in.

“If you love to work in one specific programming language and your colleague likes to work in a different one, it doesn’t matter with Visual Studio,” says Denise Dourado, director of digital and application innovation, data and artificial intelligence at Microsoft UK.

Visual Studio is an “integrated development environment” where a developer has one place they can write, edit and debug their code instead of jumping from tool to tool.

“Without Visual Studio, you’d end up having to design the code in one place, then debug it somewhere else … it would take much longer to deliver your debugged code, as opposed to doing it in one place,” says Dourado.

The worst thing for a developer, she says, is as you switch from one tool to another, you’re worrying about what happens to your code, and the development process takes a long time.

Auditing software is straightforward

So you’ve built the software, but now you need to deploy it and maintain it, which can be a huge headache. This is where Azure DevOps Services comes in.

Azure DevOps can be used by multiple people working together in collaboration and they can track any changes made to their software’s source code and release it to their customers in a live environment.

Added to that, during this time of global economic uncertainty, there’s a real need to cut costs and increase efficiency, while still delivering added value to your customers, whose businesses are undergoing significant digital transformations.

Mobile operator Vodafone found it had far too many computer systems across the company and many different code repositories for all its software. Some of its control systems even relied on Word documents to manually track source code changes.

“At that time, we were a long way off being able to automatically roll back a deployment and see specifically which line of code had caused a problem, link it back to the developer or see why we were doing it,” says Ben Connolly, head of Digital Engineering, Vodafone.

“That’s been revolutionised by the power of Azure DevOps. Now, it’s all pipelines and it’s way better audited than anything we used to have.”

Productivity boosted

Artificial intelligence (AI) is also increasingly helping to solve developer headaches. GitHub, the world’s largest code repository and social software development community is harnessing AI in the shape of GitHub Copilot.

“GitHub Copilot provides enhanced capabilities to developers, such as making suggestions for code improvements, identifying common coding errors and helping developers understand codebases more quickly, especially if they are new to a project,” adds Dourado.

GitHub says that 46% of new code is now written by AI and overall developer productivity has jumped 55%, with 75% of developers on the platform reporting that they are able to focus on the more creative parts of software development.

Software development has been democratised

Microsoft wants to take things one step further by “democratising” the IT industry and enabling people without a software development background to be able to build software too, says Dourado. “It’s bringing in users from a business environment and giving them the ability to build programs without necessarily having to understand the code,” she adds.

She also sees benefits for computing professionals who’d like to use AI, but don’t know much about how to use it in their software. Azure has a suite of AI services designed just for this issue.

For example, Azure Cognitive Services can automate document processing, improve customer service, understand the root cause of anomalies or extract insights from content.

“The world of tech is constantly changing, particularly around things like AI, and when you’re a developer, that may not be your core skill. We’re trying to allow seasoned developers to take advantage of AI without having to spend months or years learning about data science,” says Dourado.

“A key thing for me is it takes the pain out of learning new technology so they can be more free to be more creative and exploit capabilities in their applications.”

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The world stands on the brink of a productivity revolution as artificial intelligence (AI) creates a new wave of opportunity for businesses of all sizes.

Whether it’s using chatbots or more advanced AI, uncovering deeper insights about customer needs, or speeding up product development, no business wants to miss out on the uplift in output offered by AI. For some organisations, the arrival of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Dall-E, which generate content and images, has further boosted the business cases for adopting an AI strategy.

But while business leaders are keen to make the most of the technology’s advantages, they’ll also need to understand the wider responsibilities that come with it (for example, considerations around data privacy, unintentional bias, and copyright infringement) and how to make the most of opportunities that are evolving quickly.

To help boardroom executives and IT leaders navigate a successful AI strategy, Michael Wignall, director of infrastructure in the Customer Success Unit at Microsoft’s Azure business, sets out the first five steps he believes leaders should take ahead of utilising AI.

1. Make AI part of a broader cloud computing strategy

First and foremost, says Wignall, businesses should think about collaborating with an established technology provider.

AI works best when it is part of a broader cloud computing strategy, which is where IT operations are outsourced to externally run data centres, such as the cloud platform offered by Microsoft Azure, he says.

“AI is born in the cloud, and you need to be in the cloud to take advantage of this wave of innovation,” he adds. He points to the three main components of AI – computing power, data and algorithms – all of which are best provided through a cloud service. He believes businesses should adopt a “cloud native” approach, where their entire AI infrastructure is built on a cloud platform.

Such an approach brings many benefits, including: cost savings achieved by paying for only the resources used, rather than maintaining and updating costly on-premises equipment; flexibility and scalability, which allows customers to easily add or remove resources as needed; access to enhanced security tools, which can better detect, assess and warn customers about threats to their data; and disaster recovery, as in the cloud data can be easily backed up and quickly restored in the event of an outage or disaster.

2. Locate your data

Next, businesses need to get a firm handle on where data is located in their organisations and then migrate it to the cloud platform.

Success in AI depends on analysing large sets of relevant data. To fine-tune AI to achieve the best business results, it should be powered by the company’s own data from customer lists, inventories, sales information, financial and other key data. “It’s about making sure that your data platform and your data strategy are the best they can be and that you know where your data is located and how to access it,” says Wignall.

Overall, organisations need to become more data literate. “To succeed with AI, most of our customers, big or small, need to create a more data-led corporate culture,” he adds.

3. Protect your data

Once the cloud infrastructure is in place and the relevant data is migrated, the next crucial step is to protect and secure that data. With all of a company’s key data in one place – the cloud – it’s important to have peace of mind when multiple threats, such as hackers, exist. “Make sure you are protected with best-in-class security capabilities, with well-defined policies and governance around who can access the data as well as the ability to audit what they do with it,” says Wignall.

He adds that Azure offers a full set of built-in security capabilities with products such as Microsoft Defender for Cloud, a cloud native cybersecurity platform. Meanwhile, Microsoft Purview offers unified data governance, allowing users to map their data landscape and ensure their data complies with rules and regulations.

4. Decide what functions or tasks to use AI for

With the infrastructure, data and security in place, businesses can move on to deciding the best uses for AI – whether to automate office processes, extract insights from data, handle copywriting or a range of other tasks.

Over the past five years, general AI has offered what are known as “cognitive services” such as data analytics and product recommendations.

Generative AI takes the technology to a new level. With a few keystrokes, users can create content such as reports, adverts, images, copy, automatic emails and personalised connections with users.

Generative AI can also analyse a large selection of documents, call centre logs or financial results and summarise the information in a short precis.

Microsoft is building a range of AI capabilities into its workplace tools through Microsoft Copilot, which combines AI with applications such as Word, Excel and Teams – for instance, automatically summarising the main points of a Teams meeting.

Another area that can be enhanced by generative AI is rapid prototyping, where designers and product engineers can develop their ideas in days or hours rather than weeks or months.

5. Put in place responsible AI policies

Once a company puts these steps in place, its AI strategy is ready for rollout. But before launch, the business should make sure it has implemented responsible AI policies throughout. The business must make sure that the AI is not embedding bias, that it has adequate governance around its use, that it is being used ethically and does not produce unexpected or unwanted results.

Microsoft provides responsible AI policy guidance and offers tools to check for bias, ensure inappropriate data is excluded and run sentiment checks that vet the output. Ultimately, though, it is essential the business makes sure responsible AI policies are in place.

With many organisations just setting out on their AI journey, Wignall sums up the thinking that businesses should adopt when considering AI: “Urgency is key. Partnership is key. Cloud is key. Prioritise the business benefits that matter to your organisation. And get started today.”

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As organisations move their computing infrastructure into the cloud, they are harnessing the power of data as never before. Cloud-based services are using artificial intelligence (AI) to make data more accessible, easier to search and simpler to understand. Rather than data being the preserve of a team of data scientists and analysts, the new cloud-based tools and technologies are opening up this specialised area to a wider cohort of employees across organisations.

Leighton Searle, director of Azure Solutions UK at Microsoft, sees strong benefits for businesses that run their IT infrastructure through the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. “The huge potential of new generative AI technology has triggered renewed urgency and focus on the quality and availability of an organisation’s data,” he says. Once businesses migrate their data to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform they can instantly access tools and services to unlock its value for both employees and customers. This is leading to a transformation of company culture and the embedding of data more deeply across businesses.

Searle identifies four areas where cloud is boosting the use of data, empowering employees, and enhancing productivity.

1. Empowering employees to make data-driven decisions

Searle highlights that the cloud is helping to democratise data, making it accessible to employees directly in their daily workflows, rather than stuck in management reports or individual line-of-business applications. “To unlock the value – and realise the potential – of data, it’s got to be accessible to the people who need it,” says Searle. “That could mean empowering a contact centre agent with a scannable summary of all customers’ previous engagements, transactions and support calls alongside immediate access to the entire company’s knowledge base of specialist information to provide a world class customer experience, or a mobile mechanic so they are able to identify a part and inventory status from a photograph captured on their phone.”

Almost every role can benefit from timely, secure and relevant data, says Searle. If staff are to become responsible for managing the data relevant to their roles, they will need tools that simplify the process. Data visualisation tools help employees create simple representations of data to glean insights and improve the customer experience. For instance, Heathrow Airport is using the Microsoft Power BI data visualisation tool through Microsoft Teams to turn data from its admin systems into easy-to-read visualisations for staff. These offer employees an at-a-glance look at how airport passenger traffic is changing in real time, enabling airport staff to prepare for passenger traffic peaks and troughs rather than simply react to them.

2. Breaking down data silos

To achieve greater data democracy, data must be available across an organisation rather than being locked up in a central repository. “With the right guidance, governance and guardrails in place, you can then enable the rest of the business and provide them access to the data they need,” says Searle.

For instance, a group of five south London boroughs formed the South London Partnership and worked to create a universal data platform with Microsoft Azure. This includes sharing data from “internet of things” (IoT) sensors that monitor at-risk residents – which the partnership estimates has already helped to save four lives. The IoT sensors also monitor air quality and flood risks. “We’ve been able to break down data silos through cloud technology’s ability to share data while maintaining the permissions and privacy of that data,” says Searle.

3. Building AI and modern search to accelerate business

Customer and employee expectations have changed as AI-powered experiences play a greater role in everyday life. Along with a good data foundation and a good data culture these experiences are rapidly becoming table stakes for both employee and customer retention. Employees need to delve deep into institutional knowledge, from finding data in the company’s in-house apps or accessing historical information in either “structured” tables and charts or in “unstructured” form in documents, images and other sources.

Searle points to the Azure Cognitive Search platform and Azure Open AI Service, which allows users to input a general, natural language query into a search bar – which the AI-powered system will process to deliver back a natural language summary from the most relevant sources, referencing all of the data sources used for verification or further research. He says this type of AI-powered experience can help businesses unlock insights and make data-driven decisions intuitively and at a speed never seen before.

For instance, Cambridge and Peterborough NHS foundation trust moved its computing infrastructure into the cloud and made patient records more easily searchable by clinicians using Azure Cognitive Search. The trust uploaded all of its records to Azure, and these included data in all sorts of unstructured formats such as handwritten records, doctors’ notes, scans and pictures.

Clinicians said it was “mind blowing” to discover that Azure Cognitive Search made these diverse formats discoverable, and they could quickly locate handwritten notes and records from previous years.

4. Creating a data-driven culture

From frontline workers to boardroom executives, all employees should be open to embedding data into their working practices, says Searle. He believes they can all learn from the data that is flowing to them and contribute to enriching it. Employees involved in managing their own data are also well placed to reduce the risks of bias and incorrect assumptions in their data-driven decision making.

Data democratisation requires a significant shift in corporate culture, Searle believes. Departments across an organisation, whether HR, marketing, operations, sales or finance, have an important role to play in the data that they produce and consume. For example, these business users of organisational data are best placed to set the security and access policies for their data and to curate it in a way that other parts of the business can confidently make use of it.

The pace of change can be daunting for leaders at all levels. To help organisations upskill, Microsoft has partnered with European business school Insead to create a free online course called AI Business School.

Searle sums up the steps businesses need to take to get the most out of their data. “Bring your data securely into the Microsoft cloud. Lead from the top to create a data-led culture across the organisation and then move quickly on projects that are going to deliver business value. The positive experience will cascade across the business and help embed this data-led approach to scale even further.”

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Few technologies have changed the way the world operates as much as the cloud. But given its role in enabling some of our most-valued digital experiences, it doesn’t always get the credit it deserves.

Cloud technology forms the backbone of much of our day-to-day world, with businesses from the tiniest startup to the biggest conglomerate using it to power their operations. For example, ASOS used the Microsoft Azure cloud platform to deploy a new digital architecture, accelerating its ability to provide more tailored and engaging customer experiences.

But what’s really turbo-charged cloud technology’s impact is the ability to democratise access to computing power, giving disruptors and innovators chances to break into new industries.

“The cloud makes digital transformation accessible,” says Tosca Colangeli, general manager at Microsoft UK. “Because it can scale as needed. It is also an area where we see the ‘born in the cloud’ digital native community becoming huge disruptors. They can disrupt 100-year-old businesses in a way that wouldn’t have been possible before. It’s super exciting.”

Cloud technology enables businesses to access computing power via the internet. Before it came along in the 2000s, companies would have owned and run private physical servers on their premises. They would have been responsible for their upkeep and for fixing them when things went wrong; they would also have been limited to the power and capacity that server could provide, and security was often compromised. Moving to the cloud ensures access to a set of security tools that can better detect, assess and warn customers about threats to their data. When cloud technology took over, with companies such as Microsoft offering access to large public servers via the web, the flexibility and ability to scale up or down was transformative.

Pay-as-you-go

“It’s about being able to pay for the resources that you need as and when you need them,” says Colangeli, adding that this characteristic allows businesses to flex and adapt according to their peak trading periods. Not only this, but cloud’s adaptability also stretches to disaster recovery. “You’ve got this pay-as-you-go subscription model, not just for your core applications, but also for managing your disaster recovery. It’s been a great move forward.”

Cloud’s flexibility has changed how businesses operate, and it’s also changed how they innovate – something that will become increasingly important for companies coping with the pace of change wrought by Al. “The generative Al era is going to redefine how we operate, and how we innovate with technology for years to come,” says Colangeli. “It’s going to be quick, it’s going to be very fast. It took years for the internet to reach 100 million users. ChatGPT reached 100 million users in two months.”

According to Gartner, by 2026 global cloud spending will exceed 45% of all enterprise IT spending. The key to keeping up with this pace of change is embedding cloud within an organisation. Microsoft in particular is planning for this uptake by working to make sure its data centres support the increasing demand for both its Azure Al service and Copilot technologies. “Establishing a digital culture is core, and you have to start with the foundations. Cloud technology will be fundamental to this era of Al,” says Colangeli.

AI’s impact will differ according to how each company embraces the opportunity, Colangeli says. For example, she has found Microsoft’s recently launched Copilot functionality has transformed her working day. It’s called ‘Copilot’ because it sits alongside you in support. “The speed at which I can now respond to customers is remarkable. Copilot augments me, and helps me accelerate the value I can bring.”

Focus on data

So what should businesses be doing to ready themselves for the next phase of cloud technology? Colangeli flags that focusing on data should be top priority. “Your success with Al will be as good as the data you hold in your organisation. Making sure your data is accessible on a unified data platform is job number one.”

Using AI responsibly will also be a key priority for businesses. Keeping a handle on this can be challenging, however, especially with things moving so rapidly. Colangeli says Microsoft has built a series of principles, tools and processes into the Microsoft Azure platform to help with this. “When you create technologies that can change the world, you must work to ensure that the technology is used responsibly.”

Microsoft’s principles are grounded in fairness, reliability, safety, privacy, and security, and the business has built on these to develop practical boundaries. “Having principles is not enough – they are not self-executing, and they could be open to interpretation,” Colangeli says. “For that reason we’ve got a set of tools and practices that we use to set up guardrails around and within all of our products.”

Ability to adapt

Businesses looking to innovate, evolve, and ensure a place for themselves in the future will want to explore, or ramp up, their use of cloud and Al technologies. The exact approach will differ according to the business, but what’s most important is developing that ability to adapt and flex. “Cloud – particularly what we’ve done with Microsoft Azure – is the most adaptable way to build your business,” says Colangeli. “It’s not one-size-fits-all – every customer has different problems. But cloud computing is the foundation for building a truly digital business.” Building a unified data platform will enable the business to use Al to accelerate value. “But you have to start with the foundations to be able to build on it, and adopt innovation. That’s where it starts.”

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