Transacting through our marketplace connects you to thousands of pre-vetted Microsoft partner solutions, enabling you to rapidly accelerate your AI transformation and drive business outcomes. Whether that’s helping to enrich employee experiences, reinvent customer engagement or reshape business processes.  

It also represents smart spend. To move at the speed of business today, many companies prefer buying to building cloud apps, handing off the associated costs and management to SaaS partners while provisioning end-to-end solutions quickly and reliably. 

In this series of four blogs, we’ll dive into some exciting new AI-powered software solutions and how they can benefit your business. Here’s a taste of what follows.

Decision intelligence for service operations 

Imagine if every decision that service operations teams make were consistently more accurate, timely and planned for. That’s countless micro-gains every minute of the day – at your fingertips. Delivering “decision intelligence” for service operations in banks, insurance companies and healthcare providers,

ActiveOps’ blend of AI and human intelligence delivers the most complete and useful set of predictive and prescriptive insight to help make better decisions at the right time – resulting in over 20% more capacity, over 30% boost in productivity, and significant business impact, quickly. 

Guarding against cyber disruption, 24/7 

Darktrace offers global leadership in cybersecurity AI. Rather than study attacks, Darktrace DETECT’s “Self-Learning AI” technology continuously learns about your organisation, inside and out, and applies that understanding to optimise your state of cybersecurity. Darktrace is fuelling a continuous end-to-end security capability that can autonomously spot and respond to novel in-progress threats within seconds.

Read Blog 2: Safeguard your business with AI-powered security solutions 

Harness emerging Causal AI to go beyond prediction 

Causal AI is a new class of machine intelligence that overcomes many of the issues seen with traditional machine learning and AI. Using Causal AI models, organisations can now go beyond making predictions to answer “what-if?” questions.  

causaLens is the only company to have productised Causal AI through its decisionOS solution – enabling customers to optimise pricing and promotions strategies, fine-tune the marketing mix, anticipate and pre-empt customer churn, and much more. decisionOS is available via the Microsoft marketplace.

Read Blog 3: Optimise business operations through AI-powered solutions 

Delivering outstanding people processes 

Zellis is the largest provider of payroll and HR software, and managed services, to companies in the UK & Ireland. Built on Microsoft Azure, Zellis HCM Cloud connects into PowerBI for analytics, and Power Automate to create integrated solutions for payroll, HR, benefits, and recognition – driving efficiencies and staff satisfaction across your entire organisation.

Read Blog 4: Deliver transformational employee experiences through AI-empowering solutions

Empowering smooth operations from start to finish 

Innovation is thriving across sectors such as banking, finance and insurance, with support from the Microsoft cloud. Enate helps large enterprises to better manage end-to-end workflow smoothly, harnessing the power of automation and AI.

Powered by the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, EnateAI saves Operations teams from having to buy, train and test costly AI MLops solutions from third-party vendors. Instead, just “switch on” EnateAI to extract data from documents, categorise and automate email processing, and understand your customers’ sentiments, driving efficiency and cost savings straightaway.

Making smarter decisions, faster 

Imagine building your own AI-powered data extraction models with no data scientists required. That’s AI with real ROI, a solution offered by Eigen that reduces the amount of time your organisation spends on manual processes by up to 90%.  

Eigen’s no-code AI platform automates the extraction, classification, and understanding of data from any kind of document, so customers can make faster, smarter decisions. Leveraging Microsoft capabilities, Eigen’s software integrates multiple AI technologies, including natural language processing, machine learning, and computer vision.  Building a model requires only a small number of training documents, which means business users can start automating their document workflows quickly. 

Using AI to make working capital more accessible 

Trade Ledger’s mission is helping every business get the capital they need to thrive, through enabling banks and alternative lenders to simplify complex business lending. Using Large Language Models, finance professionals can query their business systems using natural language and get rich analysis and insights into their working-capital needs. AI matches their funding needs with appropriate lending products; once a product is selected, it performs the loan application process.  

By integrating AI, Trade Ledger bridges the gap between what businesses need and what lenders have on offer. It also speeds the application and decision-making process, contributing to a more accessible and transparent working-capital market. 

Reimagining trade transactions 

Meanwhile, Traydstream – a trade finance document-checking automation and digitisation platform – has partnered with Microsoft Azure to reimagine the paper-based processes that support trade finance. Available on the Microsoft marketplace, Traydstream uses a machine learning-based engine, slashing the time to complete checks on the dozens of documents and over 400,000 rules-permutations generated by a single transaction. Traydstream is now collaborating with Citi to provide their clients with access to this cutting-edge and automated trade-document processing capability. 

Start your AI transformation journey today  

Whether it’s safeguarding your organisation and data, amplifying human ingenuity or delivering transformational customer experiences, buying cloud-driven AI software solutions through the global marketplace allows your business to be more innovative, agile and resilient, with less complexity, time and cost. 

That’s because the Microsoft marketplace offers the most comprehensive catalogue of certified cloud solutions anywhere. We’ve made procurement simple, enabling you to complete your entire journey in one place, with straightforward invoicing.

Your organisation’s existing Azure cloud commitment means you can benefit from faster time-to-value, integrating solutions that work with your current technology. In addition, software/IP costs incurred by buying solutions contribute 100% off your Azure Marketplace invoice. You can also rest assured that you’re buying and running solutions on a trusted cloud that boasts industry-leading security. 

We hope you enjoy the other blogs in our series. Meanwhile, why not check out more solutions on the Azure Marketplace? For more information and partner introductions, contact our ISV team.

Other blogs in this series

Blog 2: Safeguarding your business with AI-powered security solutions 

Blog 3: Optimising business operations through AI-powered solutions 

Blog 4: Deliver transformational employee experiences through AI-empowering solutions

About the author

James joined Microsoft 15 years ago and has held leadership positions across the Consumer, Enterprise, and the Partner teams at Microsoft. James is currently the ISV Ecosystem Lead and has a passion for people and technology coming together to drive customer success. James has been at the forefront of Cloud & Digital transformation for the last 10 years launching new business models and driving transformation through the Microsoft Partner ecosystem resulting in and contributing to exciting new revenue streams and significantly accelerated growth for Microsoft and Partners.

The post Driving AI transformation with the Microsoft commercial marketplace  appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

causaLens is at the forefront of Causal AI innovation, providing solutions through the Microsoft marketplace that help organisations move beyond existing predictive models.  

In this third of our four-blog series, we’ll explore how causaLens has productised Causal AI to reimagine problem-solving across supply chains, customer journeys, manufacturing processes and more.

AI that answers your business questions 

“If I increase the price of my product by 5%, how will that affect my customer retention rate and revenue?”  

Standard machine learning struggles to provide answers to certain business questions, due to its tendency to forecast outcomes. The power of Causal AI models, which are fully transparent and explainable, is that they capture underlying causal relationships in data, not mere data correlations. This enables them to respond confidently to hypotheticals and provide actionable recommendations to optimise your business KPIs.  

While recent years have seen growing academic interest in this emerging technology, causaLens is the only company to have productised it through the decisionOS platform. 

Workflows built to answer “what-ifs” 

decisionOS lets you build and deploy decision workflows leveraging Causal AI – going from raw data to a production-ready decision-making application seamlessly. Data scientists can use decisionOS to access the latest Causal AI algorithms and build best in class Causal AI models. Business users can access “decisionApps” deployed within decisionOS to surface actionable recommendations for their use-cases and improve decision-making.  

Using decisionOS, your team is empowered to build models that go beyond correlations and understand cause and effect relationships that can predict accurately, but, more importantly, assess the impact of interventions and counterfactuals. 

decisionOS tracks decisions from data, to recommendation, to ultimate outcome and reports that back in the KPIs which your enterprise cares about That way, you can track success by the value-generating decisions you make, rather than technical metrics like model accuracy. 

Buy better outcomes 

According to Forrester, marketplaces for SaaS sourcing help alleviate issues such as SaaS sprawl, excessive cost and security risks “while still supporting business-led purchasing, which contributes to increased business agility, better business outcomes, and improved employee experience.” (Source: The Forrester New Wave™: SaaS Marketplaces, Q2 2020.)

That’s true for causaLens, which has seen customer ROI across a range of use-cases:  

• Working with a marketing team saw a 5% decrease in marketing costs by optimising allocation across campaigns. 
• Working with a European bank saw a return of $12mn from using decisionOS to manage risk. 
• Working with a leading IT manufacturer generated $19mn in savings from optimising inventory. 
• Working with a manufacturer saw a $4mn return from optimising their manufacturing lines. 

With support from the Microsoft cloud, causaLens is making an end-to-end Causal AI platform accessible to Enterprises globally via the Microsoft marketplace. This simplifies the overall process, allowing you to efficiently adopt this state-of-the-art technology while spending smarter and reducing complexity. 

Unlock the value of the cloud 

AI software published on the marketplace forms a powerful mix of innovation, reliability, security and convenience. If you’re looking for solutions to fuel your cloud transformation and grow your business, it’s the place to shop.   

To move at the speed of business today, many companies prefer buying to building cloud apps. This allows you to offload the associated costs and management onto SaaS partners.  You’re able to use private offers to get exactly what you need, including customised terms and conditions, negotiated pricing, prototypes for proof of concept, and tailor-made solutions.  

Better still, transact in a single, accessible place, reducing procurement complexity, saving time and simplifying billing. Apply 100% of the value of eligible purchases to your organisation’s Azure cloud commitment and get faster time-to-value with solutions that work with your current technology. 

All while enjoying the peace of mind that comes from buying and running solutions on a trusted cloud with industry-leading security.    

Go from raw data to decisions  

Ready to upgrade your decision making with Causal AI?  

Visit the Microsoft marketplace to buy decisionOS now, or contact our team at ISVUK@Microsoft.com.

Other blogs in this series

Blog 1: Driving your AI transformation with the Microsoft marketplace 

Blog 2: Safeguarding your business with AI-powered security solutions 

Blog 4: Deliver transformational employee experiences through AI-empowering solutions

About the author

James joined Microsoft 15 years ago and has held leadership positions across the Consumer, Enterprise, and the Partner teams at Microsoft. James is currently the ISV Ecosystem Lead and has a passion for people and technology coming together to drive customer success. James has been at the forefront of Cloud & Digital transformation for the last 10 years launching new business models and driving transformation through the Microsoft Partner ecosystem resulting in and contributing to exciting new revenue streams and significantly accelerated growth for Microsoft and Partners.

The post Optimising business operations through AI-powered solutions  appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

In this second of our four-blog series, we’ll see how prevention is truly the best defence. And as organisations continue to transition to the cloud, independent software vendors have been instrumental in building innovative cyber security solutions that appeal to customers in the fast-paced world of digital transformation.  

Darktrace, one of TIME magazine’s “Most Influential Companies” in 2021, is one such vendor. Currently protecting nearly 8,900 organisations around the world, including Royal Caribbean, City of Las Vegas, and McLaren, Darktrace works with companies of all sizes and in all verticals – from enterprises to governments, or small and medium businesses.  

Darktrace AI is designed to work with your security team across the entire attack lifecycle, providing clear analysis and context in ordinary language to drive understanding and efficiency. The solution integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Azure Sentinel and hosts its email service on Azure. Read on to discover how Darktrace’s AI-powered security products, available on the Microsoft marketplace, can help protect your organisation, building even greater confidence that your business, data and staff are safe.

On a mission to mitigate cyber-disruption  

As a global leader in cyber security AI, Darktrace is on a mission to tackle and minimise cyber-disruption. Breakthrough innovations in their Cambridge-based Cyber AI Research Centre have resulted in over 160 patents filed and research published to contribute to the cybersecurity community. That’s great news for stretched security teams, who are struggling with increasingly complex digital systems and an escalating threat landscape – from fending off ransomware attacks and data leaks, through to phishing and supply chain attacks.  

In fact, Darktrace research found that traditional email security tools, which rely on knowledge of past threats, take an average of 13 days from the launch of an attack to detection of it. (Source: Major Upgrade to Darktrace/Email™ Product Defends Organizations Against Evolving Cyber Threat Landscape.)

Darktrace has tackled the challenges of traditional cyber security efforts by turning the entire approach on its head. 

Responding to threats by knowing you

Rather than study attacks, Darktrace’s technology continuously learns and updates its knowledge of your business. Its distinction lies in the algorithms and data it uses, and how the two interact. Instead of training an AI on historical attacks – an approach that requires constant updating and maintenance – Darktrace takes their “Self-Learning AI” to your data. It’s plugged into your enterprise and learns in real time from everything that happens in your digital world – including email, cloud environments, manufacturing and operational systems, and physical locations.  

From this, the AI builds up a sense of “normal” for your organisation. This allows it to identify unusual patterns that indicate a cyber-threat – and then take targeted action to contain emerging attacks.  It then applies that understanding to optimise your unique state of cybersecurity.  

In effect, Darktrace is fuelling a continuous end-to-end security capability that can spot and respond to novel in-progress threats within seconds.  

In reality, that translates to increased threat detection accuracy and time savings – freeing you up to focus on what matters most: running your business. 

Bespoke solutions that build confidence 

According to Dan Fein, Director of Product at Darktrace, “Cyber-criminals will do whatever it takes. Daily, we see attackers impersonate CEOs or compromise vendors’ accounts to send out targeted, topical emails that look legitimate. Our security products align perfectly with Microsoft’s, allowing us to build even greater confidence among our mutual customers that their business, data and staff are protected.” 

What could that mean for your business? With Darktrace, you’ll be equipped to:  

• Detect and respond to cyber-attacks, including unknown and highly targeted attacks that evade traditional tools trained on historical attack data.   
• Stop phishing attacks with increasing accuracy, based on an understanding of “normal” user behaviour and communications.   
• Defend against threats across the entire digital enterprise – from cloud and email systems to networks, endpoints, and Operational Technology – with the same underlying AI technology.  
• Reduce triage and investigation time by automating tedious, repetitive tasks.   

Businesses are already seeing the benefits, with Darktrace customers reporting significant improvements in threat detection accuracy and time savings. One real estate enterprise reported a 95.83% reduction in time to identify potential threats. Another healthcare organisation reported a 90% reduction in triage time.  

Driving cognitive AI with Microsoft Security Copilot 

Helping to take cutting-edge cybersecurity to new levels, Darktrace is taking part in Microsoft’s Security Copilot Partner Private Preview.  

Security Copilot is Microsoft’s next-generation AI-powered security product that enables security professionals to respond to threats quickly, process signals at machine speed, and assess risk exposure in minutes. It combines an advanced large language model (LLM) with a security-specific model that’s informed by Microsoft’s unique global threat intelligence and more than 65 trillion daily signals. 

Selected for their proven experience with Microsoft security technologies and their close relationship with Microsoft, Darktrace will give feedback on Security Copilot product development, helping to refine new scenarios and drive future product releases. 

Get added benefits of buying through the marketplace 

Trust, simplicity and efficiency all count for a lot. Buying from the Microsoft marketplace means all solutions are certified and optimised to run on Azure. You’re able to use private offers to get exactly what you need, including customised terms and conditions, negotiated pricing, prototypes for proof of concept, and tailor-made solutions. 

Better still, transact in a single, accessible place, reducing procurement complexity, saving time and simplifying billing. Apply eligible purchases to your organisation’s Azure cloud commitment by contributing 100% of the purchase off your Azure Marketplace invoice.  

All while enjoying the peace of mind that comes from buying and running solutions on a trusted cloud with industry-leading security.  

Start protecting the Darktrace way today  

See what Darktrace discovers in your environment. Visit the Microsoft marketplace to buy Darktrace/Email or DarktraceDetect now, or contact our team at ISVUK@Microsoft.com.  

Other blogs in this series

Blog 1: Driving your AI transformation with the Microsoft marketplace 

Blog 3: Optimising business operations through AI-powered solutions 

Blog 4: Deliver transformational employee experiences through AI-empowering solutions

About the author

James joined Microsoft 15 years ago and has held leadership positions across the Consumer, Enterprise, and the Partner teams at Microsoft. James is currently the ISV Ecosystem Lead and has a passion for people and technology coming together to drive customer success. James has been at the forefront of Cloud & Digital transformation for the last 10 years launching new business models and driving transformation through the Microsoft Partner ecosystem resulting in and contributing to exciting new revenue streams and significantly accelerated growth for Microsoft and Partners.

The post Safeguarding your business with AI-powered security solutions  appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Zellis is the largest provider of payroll and HR software and managed services to companies in the UK and Ireland, trusted by 42% of FTSE 100 companies. 

In this final blog of our four-part series, we’ll take a look at their flagship product, Zellis HCM Cloud. Read on to discover how your organisation can benefit from AI-powered payroll solutions that drive efficiencies right across your business.

Modern experiences that navigate challenges 

Organisations and employees are still navigating challenging times in the wake of Covid and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. These macro events have fuelled ongoing legislative change and increased complexity across the board. In today’s fast-moving and often unpredictable world of work, it’s no longer enough to ensure efficient payroll and HR processes. Organisations need the very best AI-driven HCM technology to ensure compliance with complex regulations, unlock data-driven insights, and provide people with modern, digital experiences.  

Zellis has tackled the challenge by providing the most engaging, empowering, and efficient AI-powered HR and payroll solution in the UK and Republic of Ireland markets. 

Delivering award-winning solutions 

Zellis HCM Cloud can help you achieve a lot more than the smooth running of payroll and HR processes. It’s a data-driven, cloud-based, and open HCM software platform, complete with award-winning solutions for payroll, HR, benefits and recognition. Built on Microsoft Azure, Zellis HCM Cloud also connects into the AI-based Microsoft Power Platform – PowerBI for analytics and Power Automate – to create business-wide efficiencies. 

Let’s start with Zellis’ cloud payroll software. It’s automated, accurate and compliant, affording the flexibility and peace of mind that organisations need. You can either use it as a standalone, best-in-class payroll solution, or together with their HR solution. 

Then there’s the HR management software. This empowers your employees, creating process efficiencies via automated AI-driven workflows that free up time for HR to spend on strategic activities. From hire to retire, it supports productivity, enables intelligent reporting, and supports exceptional experiences. 

In addition, the MyView PayNow app is designed to support financial wellbeing. This self-service app, available as an extension to the MyView portal, helps your employees to better understand their pay and benefits, manage their budgeting, choose when to get paid (also known as flexible pay), access free guidance, and save for a rainy day. 

Building innovations of tomorrow 

Leveraging Microsoft technology has enabled Zellis to establish a dedicated Zellis AI Lab to build expertise in AI, exploiting the potential of the Zellis Intelligence Platform combined with Microsoft Azure and OpenAI.  

One of the first products developed in the Zellis AI Lab is a Generative AI-powered chat user interface for use by customers’ colleagues. This is designed to support their engagement and drive HR efficiencies by helping employees to perform HR tasks and understand payslips and employment conditions without needing to raise a ticket.  

This frees up time for the HR and Payroll teams to concentrate on more strategic areas, such as strategy planning by using Zellis AI-driven predictive analytics, instead of spending hours on purely reactive work such as answering employee queries.  

Early indications show that by using AI in this way, customers could reduce the time it takes to respond to employee queries by around 75%.  

Unlock the value of the cloud 

AI software published on the Microsoft marketplace forms a powerful mix of innovation, reliability, security and convenience. If you’re looking for solutions to fuel your cloud transformation and grow your business, it’s the place to shop.   

To move at the speed of business today, many companies prefer buying to building cloud apps. This allows them to offload the associated costs and management onto SaaS partners.  You’re able to use private offers to get exactly what you need, including customised terms and conditions, negotiated pricing, prototypes for proof of concept, and tailor-made solutions.  

Better still, transact in a single, accessible place, reducing procurement complexity, saving time and simplifying billing. Apply 100% of the value of eligible purchases to your organisation’s Azure cloud commitment and get faster time-to-value with solutions that work with your current technology. 

All while enjoying the peace of mind that comes from buying and running solutions on a trusted cloud with industry-leading security.   

Boost your HR and payroll solutions with AI power 

Ready to deploy transformational employee experiences across your organisation? 

Visit the Microsoft marketplace to buy Zellis HCM Cloud now, or contact our team at ISVUK@Microsoft.com.

Other blogs in this series

Blog 1: Driving your AI transformation with the Microsoft marketplace 

Blog 2: Safeguarding your business with AI-powered security solutions 

Blog 3: Optimising business operations through AI-powered solutions 

About the author

James joined Microsoft 15 years ago and has held leadership positions across the Consumer, Enterprise, and the Partner teams at Microsoft. James is currently the ISV Ecosystem Lead and has a passion for people and technology coming together to drive customer success. James has been at the forefront of Cloud & Digital transformation for the last 10 years launching new business models and driving transformation through the Microsoft Partner ecosystem resulting in and contributing to exciting new revenue streams and significantly accelerated growth for Microsoft and Partners.

The post Deliver transformational employee experiences through AI-empowering solutions   appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Today, the pressures are different. The global workforce is shrinking as the population ages. Labour productivity is in the doldrums. And, with a more connected global population, security threats emerge and evolve faster than ever. While human ingenuity and expertise will always be needed to defend against these threats, 87% of leaders see AI as a market advantage.  

Whether you’re looking to improve agility and security in your SAP workloads, wanting to innovate without disrupting core business processes or looking for more control over your SAP migration, the cloud and AI offer a unique opportunity.

Here are five ways the Microsoft Cloud can help you harness the power of AI and extend your SAP capabilities. 

1. Create faster with AI-driven data insights

In a world of deadlines and labour-intensive tasks, innovation and creativity can suffer. By integrating Azure AI services to your SAP data, you can optimise your workflow and empower your employees to create ideas and content faster. Our AI-powered data platforms also help you complete time-consuming tasks with ease, offering instant and intelligent insights that propel your work forward. 

An example is the Microsoft Fabric platform. It delivers data analytics in a software-as-a-service model, with an open, lake-centric data architecture and deep integration with Microsoft 365. Its built-in AI Copilot helps you find out what you need to know using natural language. In addition, it’s built to work across clouds, so you can easily migrate elsewhere in the future. 

Part of the Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform is Power BI, relied on by the vast majority of Fortune 500 companies. With easy-to-use AI analysis capabilities and AI-powered data summarisation, it helps you find insights, make decisions and take appropriate action with ease.  

2. Improve collaboration and productivity

To get the most from your employees, they need to be freed from siloed technology, software and business processes. You can enhance employee productivity by integrating and giving access to SAP data in Microsoft 365. 

With Microsoft 365 Copilot, your AI assistant can help you keep work organised and your employees productive. It combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with your data in the Microsoft Graph – your calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings, and more – and the Microsoft 365 apps to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet. 

Copilot for Microsoft 365 works alongside your favourite day-to-day office apps. Just a few examples:

• You can be more creative in Microsoft Word, as Copilot writes, edits, summarises and creates alongside you. Rapidly find key information or get a head start by generating (and then re-generating) a full client brief.

• Copilot helps put all the rich capabilities of Microsoft Excel at your fingertips. It will review and edit data with simple prompts, make sheet-wide updates in seconds, and visualise key insights from large data-sets. 

• In Microsoft PowerPoint, you can now quickly summarise an entire presentation deck, or organise your deck into sections. Copilot also makes it easy to transform existing written documents into full decks, complete with speaker notes and sources – all with a few simple, spoken prompts. 

• With Microsoft Outlook and Teams, Copilot lightens the load and provides the gift of clarity. Summarising long email or message threads (with bullet points and all), pulling out different opinions expressed in meetings, and quickly drafting suggested replies and action items, all in real time. So you can unlock the magic of efficient and effective meetings. ​ 

Combining Microsoft Generative AI with SAP’s SuccessFactors and Joule enables new experiences for HR leaders, recruiters, hiring managers and employees. They can now create tailored job descriptions based on SAP SuccessFactors data and external data. Or rapidly generate interview questions based on an applicant’s CV. Using Microsoft Viva Copilot, employees will be able to curate their own learning paths. 

3. Simplify with automation and innovation

When great ideas or highly productive employees are held back by repetitive or labour-intensive business processes, it can stifle progress and creativity. Simplify your business process with AI-driven development and automation, using your SAP data. 

For over a decade, we’ve been progressively unifying the Microsoft Power Platform into a unique, fully integrated and cloud-powered suite. With solutions such as Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents and AI Builder, we’ve reinvented how all makers develop software, further democratising access to innovative business solutions.

Today, all employees have access to the tools they need to create applications, solve problems, automate workflows and analyse data more effectively. With Copilot working as your AI assistant in Power Apps, the development process is more accessible and less repetitive, so your development cycles don’t get slowed down.

Just describe your goal verbally, and Power Apps will use integrated AI to generate code, and even build complete apps. Check out the latest AI and other advances built into Power Apps.

You can also auto-generate working apps and data within seconds from images and design files. Save time, build more complex solutions, and reimagine business applications. Empower anyone across the business to create apps quickly and easily. 

4. Improve developer productivity with Copilot

Working faster and smarter can be crucial when it comes to business competitiveness and innovation. One of the most exciting new capabilities we’ve recently launched with GitHub is a new service we call GitHub Copilot. It can empower developers to save time and energy with AI-generated code, and helps easily integrate AI capabilities into SAP ABAP applications. 

GitHub Copilot provides an AI-pair programmer that works with all of the popular programming languages. This dramatically accelerates developer productivity. Up to 46% of all new code written by developers using Copilot is now fully AI-generated, with developers reporting a 55% productivity boost by using Copilot. 60% to 75% of developers who use GitHub Copilot also say it helps them focus on more satisfying work and enjoy their jobs more. 

5. Stay ahead with AI-driven security

Keeping protected against cyberthreats in today’s security landscape means being able to respond quickly and effectively. With Microsoft Security Copilot, you can do just that. 

Security Copilot combines the most advanced GPT4 model from OpenAI with a Microsoft-developed, security-specific model. It’s powered by Microsoft Security’s unique expertise and scale, sifting through 65 trillion signals daily. So whether you need to detect hidden patterns, harden defences or respond to incidents in your SAP systems, it’ll help you do it better and faster. 

As the first and only generative AI security product to help defend organisations at machine speed and scale, Security Copilot helps you be more effective and efficient while also supporting your teams to solve security challenges. It runs on our security and privacy-compliant hyperscale infrastructure, which is unique to Microsoft and brings the full benefit of being on the Azure cloud platform. And over time, it will work with a growing ecosystem of products from third-party vendors. 

With this comprehensive approach, and all your security capabilities in one place, you’ll benefit from unparalleled simplicity, visibility, automation, and intelligence.  

Extend SAP and innovate on Microsoft Cloud

Redefine what’s possible by integrating AI and Microsoft into your SAP data. It can help empower your employees, accelerate savings in your business, optimise your workload and enhance your productivity.  

To learn how AI can benefit your organisation and how we’ll support you through the change, please contact the authors, Sean Pilkington and Tom Payne, or your Microsoft representatives. 

Find out more

Microsoft Discovery Day: SAP on the Microsoft Cloud

Maximize SAP Investments by Migrating to the Microsoft Cloud: On-demand webinar

Innovate on Your SAP Data with Power Platform Integration: On-demand webinar

About the authors

Sean Pilkington

As the SAP on Azure UK Lead at Microsoft, Sean draws on over 20 years of experience in SAP design and solutioning to help clients visualise how their SAP solutions can be deployed into the Azure cloud. He thrives on demonstrating innovative technology that seamlessly blends with SAP to give customers the best experience, while enabling their business to drive down costs, increase ROI on technology and accelerate their digital transformation.

Tom Payne

As the SAP on Azure Sales Lead at Microsoft, Tom brings a wealth of experience to empowering SAP customers as they embrace cloud transformation with Microsoft Azure. He is adept at simplifying complex technology applications while optimising the customer journey.

The post Embrace the art of the possible: 5 ways Microsoft AI can enhance your SAP workload  appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

The partnership, which will see us supply a variety of digital solutions to NHS organisations all over the country, is the latest step in a trusted relationship that has already spanned several decades. It will also be key to accelerating the ongoing digital transformation of the health service, one of the world’s greatest and most-loved public institutions.

Personally speaking, it is something of which I am extremely proud. Microsoft’s work with the NHS is genuinely helping to improve people’s lives. Since the start of the pandemic, for example, the roll out of Microsoft Teams across the organisation saved NHS employees around 17 million hours of productive time, allowing them to concentrate on dealing with the extraordinary levels of demand for healthcare instead.

Today’s partnership announcement could not be more timely. As we celebrate the NHS’s 75^th anniversary, it faces some of the greatest challenges in its history: record waiting lists; soaring inflation; an aging population; and chronic staff shortages. Microsoft’s digital technologies can – and must – contribute to easing these pressures by increasing productivity, supporting collaboration and mitigating security threats.

A lighter load

In short, we must help equip the NHS to thrive in a digital-first world, enabling it to deliver high quality services to patients more quickly, efficiently and equitably.

Using the Microsoft cloud to automate processes is a great place to start as the more we can do to lighten healthcare professionals’ administrative load and alleviate the pressures on their time, the more they can focus on doing what they do best: caring for patients.

As well as freeing up staff from repetitive tasks and unnecessary meetings, automation can also help streamline the process of onboarding for new clinicians, while cloud technologies reduce the need for capital investment in on-premises infrastructure, generating further savings for the NHS that can be redirected to patient care.

Collaboration empowered

The impact on patients’ experiences should be equally transformative. Whether it’s at their GP surgery, on the wards or in a specialist hospital, people want and expect their interactions with the NHS to be joined-up.

Microsoft’s digital technologies can help make that happen, giving staff from across different NHS departments and geographical locations the power to connect and collaborate on the delivery of truly integrated care services.

Imagine nurses overseeing bed and capacity management, for example. By using Teams, they can build a 360-degree view of patient requirements, share operational documents instantly and communicate any changes and updates with each other at speed.

A securer future

Microsoft technologies can also help solve another of the health service’s most pressing concerns: cybersecurity. The volume of data and personal information held by the NHS is greater than ever and the positive side of this is that it enables better, more connected treatment for patients.

However, it is also intensifies the security risk, especially with criminals becoming ever more sophisticated and frequent in their attacks. The financial, operational and societal costs of an NHS cyber breach could undoubtedly be significant and damaging.

In 2021, Microsoft committed to investing $20 billion in security over the next five years to continue protecting our customers around the world. Today’s agreement will enable Microsoft to continue to work with NHS England and Local NHS Organisations, developing the required access to a comprehensive suite of security solutions to protect their people, data and assets. These include threat protection, data governance and compliance solutions that will continue to bolster the health service’s cyber resilience going forward.

Proud history, ambitious future

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more. And nowhere is this more important than in the world of healthcare. One of our company’s most important achievements was the assistance we gave to the NHS during the pandemic, ensuring GP practices, NHS organisations and national bodies could keep their systems running and their people working together at a time of unprecedented national need.

We have also worked closely with NHS IT staff to accelerate the digital transformation of its systems faster than was ever believed possible and continue to support the much-needed shift towards the remote delivery of key elements of the patient journey. Read more about the different elements of our longstanding NHS partnership.

Yet while we are proud of those achievements so far, what really matters is what’s next. The health service once again finds itself facing widespread transformation and reform alongside the ever-present challenge of improving outcomes while limiting costs. Now more than ever, we must look to technology as a way to maximise the time NHS staff have for care and to, ultimately, deliver better experiences for patients. On the path to a digital future, Microsoft is committed to helping the NHS every step of the way.

Find out more

Maximising time to care: accelerating NHS digital achievements, at scale

NHS makes data more discoverable using Azure Cognitive Search to save clinicians’ time

vCreate & Microsoft Azure connects patients with their families and clinical teams

About the author

Jacob leads Microsoft’s UK local government, healthcare and life sciences business.

A former adviser to two UK Prime Ministers, Jacob has worked in healthcare locally, nationally and internationally, in the NHS and overseas.

Jacob was the Harkness Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health and is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London’s Public Policy Institute.

The post Maximising the time for care in the NHS appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Getting started with Azure Machine Learning

Azure Machine Learning (Azure ML) is a cloud-based environment where you can build and manage machine learning models. It’s designed to govern the entire ML life cycle, so you can train and deploy models without focusing on setup. The platform is suitable for any kind of machine learning, from classical to deep learning, to supervised and unsupervised learning.

Azure ML is structured to help teams of data scientists and ML engineers make the most of their existing data processing and model development skills. Whether you prefer Python or R – or have previous experience with other open-source platforms such as PyTorch and TensorFlow – Azure ML is flexible enough to support these platforms and accelerate your work.

With built-in services like Azure ML studio that provide a user-friendly interface, and Automated Machine Learning capabilities that assist you in model selection and training, Azure ML has tools and features to suit every level of experience.

• Learn more about Azure Machine Learning
• Try Azure Machine Learning for free

Kickstart your Azure Machine Learning journey

Whether you’re a developer or simply someone who wants to get a feel for what Azure Machine Learning is all about, there are plenty of learning resources out there.

• Introduction to Azure Machine Learning
• Use automated machine learning in Azure Machine Learning
• Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals: Explore visual tools for machine learning
• Train a machine learning model with Azure Machine Learning
• Introduction to the Azure Machine Learning SDK
• Work with Data in Azure Machine Learning

You can also find further learning resources on the Azure ML learning resources page.

Try out Azure Machine Learning

One of the best ways to get grips with new tools and software is simply to give it a go. There’s no better way to do this than getting stuck into Azure Machine Learning itself.

Trying out Azure Machine Learning is free, so give it a whirl today.

• Try Azure Machine Learning for free

Learn more

• Why you can’t always rely on AI when designing for accessibility
• How you can get started with scalable AI as an IT Pro
• Azure Mythbusters: The Who’s Who of the Azure AI Platform
• Azure Mythbusters: Building ML Models faster than you think
• Enjoy free technical sessions from Microsoft experts on Learn TV!

The post Getting started with Azure Machine Learning appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Yet for many business decision-makers, the biggest question continues to be: “How do I start the journey?”

To help answer this question, I want to outline some practical applications of AI that can help your team achieve more today. I’ll then end with some high-level implementation tips.

First, a few words about preparing for the road ahead.

Nurturing (and protecting) your new “learning culture”

As your organisation implements AI, you’ll embark on a change-management journey in which departmental and data silos tend to disappear. In fact, you’ll get the best out of AI by nurturing:

• Organisation-wide participation, so all staff can contribute new solutions to business problems
• Two-way communication, right across a diverse and inclusive team
• Experimentation, including opportunities to learn from mistakes

Your new AI-driven “learning culture” will increasingly be powered by data, with richer insights and new analytical tools. To support this major shift, we’ve developed an end-to-end analytics solution, Microsoft Fabric, unveiled at Microsoft Build 2023. Infused with the Azure OpenAI Service at every layer, Fabric integrates the most advanced D&A tools – from Data Factory to Power BI and Synapse – in one place. Enabling you to surface business insights faster than ever.

Responsible AI by design

It will also be important to consider the ethical, cultural and compliance aspects of deploying AI technology. You can rest assured that, in designing AI solutions, Microsoft puts people and principle first. Our team of researchers, engineers and policy experts is guided by our AI principles and  Responsible AI Standard, along with decades of research on AI, grounding and privacy-preserving machine learning.

Our design process ensures Microsoft AI systems are scrutinised for potential harms and mitigations. We also make it clear how a system makes decisions by noting its limitations, linking to sources and prompting users to review and adjust content based on their subject-matter expertise.

5 ways to start implementing AI at work

The following scenarios highlight how Microsoft AI can help you work smarter and faster, using natural language to cut through the drudgery of search and manual compilation. Our solutions put technology, AI, data, cybersecurity and advanced usability through natural language at your disposal.

1. Transform workloads with an AI copilot

Imagine next-generation AI embedded into the Microsoft 365 apps you use at work each day – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and more. That’s Copilot in Microsoft 365.

Using Copilot in Word, you can now quickly create a first draft to edit and develop using a language prompt. Want more help? Copilot will shorten, rewrite or give feedback on it.

You’re always in control. You can (and should) review, fact-check and fine-tune content yourself.

Creating a presentation? With Copilot in PowerPoint, you can easily bring in slide content from any previous deck. And Copilot in Excel will help you rapidly analyse trends and create data visualisations.

Create reports in seconds

With our Business Chat AI tool, you can use a natural language prompt (such as “Tell the CEO how we’ve updated the campaign strategy”) to instantly create a status update, based on your relevant meetings, documents, emails and chat threads.

2. Detect cybersecurity threats faster 

For security operations and response teams, constant vigilance against threats can drain resources and exhaust individuals.

Microsoft Security Copilot reduces the burden. It uses AI to integrate insights and data from security tools, detecting vulnerabilities earlier and shutting down cyberattacks.

Microsoft Security Copilot provides intelligent guidance informed by 65 trillion daily signals.

It also puts your people first by improving usability. To understand functions, users can simply ask for step-by-step guidance.

As with all our AI solutions, Security Copilot strictly follows our AI principles and Responsible AI Standard. It also runs on Azure’s hyperscale infrastructure for a fully privacy-compliant experience.

3. Reinvent search with an AI copilot for the web  

Our new AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge browser tools are like a copilot for the web. They give you more complete search answers, a new chat experience, and the ability to generate content.

“We’ve launched Bing and Edge powered by AI copilot and chat, to help people get more from search and the web.”

Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft

With the chat experience, you can easily fine-tune your search by asking for more details and clarity. You’ll get relevant links to follow up, too.

Merging search, browser and chat opens up exciting possibilities. Need the highlights of a long annual report? Just ask for it using the Edge Sidebar. Want to compare it to a competitor and see them side-by-side in a table? Just use the chat function.

Even as AI transforms search, the privacy policies of Bing and Edge AI ensure your user identity and behaviour are safe and protected.

4. Improve services and solve problems with AI

Rapidly improve your customer service and data insights by tapping into the power of generative AI models, including GPT-4, Codex, and DALL-E 2. All are available through the Azure OpenAI Service, backed by built-in Microsoft Azure security, compliance and data privacy and the Responsible AI Standard.

Solve your business problem in seconds

Looking to speed up clinical communications or automate an accounting process? Any team member can now do it using AI and low-code. We’ve added Copilot to Microsoft Power Platform, so you can create apps, flows and bots in seconds through natural language. And whatever you build, you can easily query the data for instant, actionable insights.

You can develop Power Automate workflows in 50% less time with Copilot.

5. Unite teams, communicate and collaborate in one place

We’ve also improved usability. Instead of having to keep an eye on your chat while presenting in Teams, you can use Copilot to auto-answer any questions – and save time to collaborate.

Copilot finds Teams notifications, messages and information rapidly and helps you manage work with personalised suggestions. Asking Copilot for a summary can help reduce that Monday morning weekly-status stress by putting you one step ahead.

Implementing AI at scale: 4 practical steps

Scaling your AI journey can be confusing with so many technical, business, cultural and ethical considerations. To move smoothly from experimenting to implementing, follow these steps.  

1. Think business transformation

Approach AI as a business change programme, with tech as a key component. AI will transform your culture, so this might help you think big. It will also stop you seeing AI as belonging solely to IT. 

2. Get your people onboard

Take the time to explain to stakeholders the reasons for change. Highlight the benefits they can expect. No-one should feel they’re having AI “done to them”.   

3. Identify a problem to solve

Scope a business problem, then plan how AI can help solve it. That way, your solution can create measurable value. Don’t use a new business problem – start with one you know and understand.

4. Build an organisation-wide strategy

Create a strategy that allows AI to scale organically. Businesses that focus on scale do better than those hoping multiple, smaller projects will automatically lead to scale.

Over to you

Integrating AI into your business shouldn’t be a daunting process. We’ve designed our AI solutions to fit in with the way you work, not the other way round. This includes applying robust ethical AI principles at every step, and it’s why Copilot automatically adopts your organisation’s security, compliance, and privacy policies and processes. It also protects your tenant, group and individual data.

As Microsoft AI creates a new workplace interaction between humans and computers, I hope this blog has inspired you to take the first step. I look forward with excitement to seeing how AI helps you unleash innovation, unlock productivity and expand skills across the team.

Find out more

Visit the Microsoft AI hub

Accelerate competitive advantage with AI

Build an AI strategy with our Digital Transformation Playbook

Microsoft Responsible AI principles

About the author

As National Technology Officer, I lead Microsoft’s technology vision and model its culture of learning, while developing strategies to protect and extend Microsoft Cloud into complex regulated markets. My goal is to inspire leaders of state and enterprise, as well as regulators and customers, on how best to leverage innovation to drive digital transformation.

The post AI starter pack: 5 ways to implement AI into your business appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Discover Azure AI – a portfolio of AI services designed for developers and data scientists. Take advantage of the decades of breakthrough research, responsible AI practices and flexibility that Azure AI offers to build and deploy your own AI solutions. Access high-quality vision, speech, language and decision-making AI models through simple API calls, and create your own machine learning models with tools such as Jupyter Notebooks, Visual Studio Code and open-source frameworks such as TensorFlow and PyTorch.

Getting started with Azure AI

AI is a broad classification of computing that allows a software system to perceive its environment and take action that maximizes its chance of successfully achieving its goals. A goal of AI is to create a software system that’s able to adapt, or learn something on its own without being explicitly programmed to do it.

There are two basic approaches to AI. The first is to employ a deep learning system that’s modelled on the neural network of the human mind, enabling it to discover, learn, and grow through experience.

The second approach is machine learning, a data science technique that uses existing data to train a model, test it, and then apply the model to new data to forecast future behaviours, outcomes, and trends.

• Get started with AI on Azure
• Choose the best AI service for your needs

Kickstart your Azure AI learning journey

Whether you’re a developer or simply someone who wants to get a feel for what Azure AI is all about, there are plenty of learning resources out there.

• Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals: Explore natural language processing
• Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals: Explore decision support
• Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals: Explore knowledge mining
• Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals: Explore computer vision
• Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals: Explore visual tools for machine learning

You can also find further learning resources on the Azure AI learning resources page.

Try out Azure AI

One of the best ways to get grips with new tools and software is simply to give it a go. There’s no better way to do this than getting stuck into Azure AI itself.

Trying out Azure AI is free, so give it a whirl today.

• Try Azure AI for free

Learn more

• Why you can’t always rely on AI when designing for accessibility
• How you can get started with scalable AI as an IT Pro
• Enjoy free technical sessions from Microsoft experts on Learn TV!

The post Getting started with Azure AI appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.