Every agent – whether a copilot, workflow assistant or autonomous system – relies on APIs and events to exchange information to act safely. However, managing that growing web of application-to-application (A2A) communication is now one of the biggest challenges in enterprise architecture.

Recognised as a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for API Management, Gravitee now brings its expertise in API governance and security to the agentic era. Gravitee API management helps organisations orchestrate and secure interactions between APIs, events and AI agents.

Together, Gravitee and Microsoft help organisations co-ordinate and protect the interactions that enable intelligent systems.

Gravitee API management and the evolution of connectivity

Gravitee has long supported global enterprises in managing their APIs and event streams. As organisations begin to deploy intelligent agents, those same foundations are helping them extend API management principles into the world of AI.

For example, instead of manually coding integrations, developers are designing environments where agents can discover, call and combine APIs autonomously. Each agent has defined permissions, costs and data boundaries.

Without proper governance, however, “agent sprawl” can quickly emerge. This can introduce operational risk, compliance gaps and unpredictable cost.

These risks aren’t hypothetical. Gravitee research conducted in October 2025 shows that 82% of companies have encountered scenarios where agent interaction caused issues, such as data exposure or unapproved system actions. Therefore, robust control must be built in from day one.

The focus on safe, transparent agent operations aligns with Microsoft’s responsible AI principles, which emphasise accountability, reliability and human oversight. Moreover, Gravitee’s Agent Mesh helps operationalise those principles – unifying the management of APIs, events and agents to give teams full visibility, policy control and security across all interactions.

Governing AI agents with Gravitee API management

Unlike traditional software, AI agents are designed to interpret intent, manage API calls and respond dynamically to user context. This adaptability also demands a new level of control. With Gravitee on Microsoft Azure, enterprises can:

• Apply governance and rate-limiting policies across APIs and events
• Monitor real-time interactions between agents and enterprise systems
• Standardise communication through open protocols, such as the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

In short, by establishing guardrails and observability, enterprises can ensure agents operate responsibly – while continuing to innovate.

Built for the enterprise, powered by Azure

Microsoft’s partnership with Gravitee delivers enterprise-grade scalability and trust. As a result, the Gravitee platform, deployed on Microsoft Azure, enables customers to build secure, production-ready agent ecosystems.

In addition, organisations can deploy Gravitee from the Azure Marketplace with a single click. This provides simplified procurement, unified billing and built-in compliance. Explore Gravitee on Azure Marketplace.

Building the future together

As enterprises move from AI experimentation to production, success will depend on effectively connecting, governing and evolving agent ecosystems.

Microsoft and Gravitee are working together to make that possible. They combine Gravitee’s deep expertise in API and event control with Azure’s global reach and secure AI infrastructure.

Ultimately, the result is a platform that transforms connectivity into a competitive advantage. Every API, event and agent interaction is secure, observable and ready to scale responsibly.

This article is authored by a guest contributor. The views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily represent Microsoft’s position.

Find out more

Learn more about Gravitee on the Azure Marketplace

Read the blog: Transforming insurance with AI-powered autonomous agents

About the author

Since taking over as CEO in 2020, Rory has led Gravitee through a period of extraordinary growth, increasing revenue by a factor of twenty-five and positioning the company as a recognised leader by Gartner. Over this period, Gravitee has pioneered innovations like the Gravitee Event Stream Gateway and Gravitee Agent Mesh, applying the principles of API management to AI agent governance and control.

Rory brings a strong background in scaling SaaS businesses and a customer-first, execution-focused leadership style. A regular speaker and thought leader on AI in enterprise tech, high-growth leadership and API strategy, he is known for building high-performing, mission-driven teams that deliver sustainable success.

The post Building the connective tissue for the agentic era with Gravitee appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

This leaves financial institutions at a crossroads. Traditional reliance on manual tracking and fragmented systems is no longer sustainable.  

For compliance and risk teams, the challenge isn’t just volume – it’s velocity. The ability to interpret, act and align internal policies with external mandates in real time is now a competitive differentiator. 

It’s time to bring in intelligent automation – and this is where compliance software provider CUBE, with its AI-powered regulatory intelligence platform, is leading the charge. 

AI as a strategic enabler, not just a tool 

AI is moving beyond simple support in compliance and risk to become a critical enabler. For example, CUBE’s Automated Regulatory Intelligence (ARI) engine, powered by RegBrain, transforms regulatory content into structured, contextualised intelligence.

Far surpassing keyword matching or robotic parsing, the CUBE solution takes account of nuance, intent and jurisdictional relevance – at scale. 

Advanced AI regulatory intelligence

The CUBE platform combines advanced technology and human expertise to deliver smarter regulatory insights. 

• Semantic AI: goes beyond surface-level text to interpret regulatory meaning and map it to business obligations. 

• Global coverage: monitors 10,000 issuing bodies across 750 jurisdictions, enabling end-to-end oversight. 

• Dynamic mapping: aligns external regulations with internal controls, policies and frameworks in real time. 

• “Human in the loop” assurance: 250 in-house subject matter experts ensure precision and trust. 

From compliance burden to strategic insight 

CUBE’s RegPlatform^TM unlocks opportunity as well as reducing risk. By surfacing regulatory trends and emerging themes, the platform empowers leadership teams to anticipate change rather than react to it.

This shift from defensive compliance to proactive governance is where true transformation lies. 

Building the future through ecosystem thinking 

Since the start of 2024, CUBE has more than doubled revenue and headcount, completing landmark acquisitions, including Acin in June 2025 and the Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence and Oden businesses in January 2025. The company has also launched its new global HQ and AI Centre of Excellence in London. 

Acquiring Acin led to the creation of the industry’s first unified data-driven platform to combine regulatory compliance and operational risk management. This is also the foundation of a global industry collaboration initiative, led by CUBE and supported by Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, JPMorganChase and Lloyds Banking Group.  

The goal of this partnership is to raise standards, reduce duplication, accelerate responsible AI innovation and deliver better outcomes across the ecosystem. 

Beyond finance: a cross-industry imperative 

While CUBE’s core is financial services, its impact is expanding. Financially regulated industries such as insurance, healthcare, energy and supervisory boards are now leveraging CUBE’s RegPlatform to navigate sector-specific regulations with confidence.

Regulatory intelligence is no longer a niche function but a universal need. 

Built on trusted Microsoft AI 

Microsoft isn’t just providing Azure Cloud horsepower for CUBE’s solution. The Microsoft AI technology stack further delivers the depth and reliability that compliance demands. From natural language understanding to responsible AI governance, the company’s technical expertise ensures that platforms like CUBE can scale without compromising trust. 

Microsoft’s strategic partnership with CUBE heralds a future in which AI-powered regulatory intelligence is embedded into every organisation. 

Thought leadership in action 

Beyond helping organisations respond to regulatory change, CUBE is helping shape the future of compliance and risk. With advanced AI, global scale and deep subject-matter expertise, CUBE is delivering the tools to help regulated industries stay compliant, manage risk and stay ahead of regulatory headwinds.

This is what compliance and risk means in the digital age – no longer a cost centre, but a source of resilience, reputation and readiness. 

Find out more

Read the blog: Hyperscale data and GenAI: transforming business intelligence for better decisions

Read the blog: AI and cloud innovation: shaping the future of LegalTech for software development companies 

Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager

About the author

Ben is the Founder and CEO of CUBE Ltd, which he established in 2011 to transform regulatory compliance through AI. Previously at Misys (now part of Finastra), Ben recognised how unstructured data could help reshape the future of compliance.

Today, CUBE is the first automated service to track regulatory updates from every source worldwide, helping organisations standardise and map changes to stay compliant. CUBE serves over 1,000 clients in more than 150 countries, and Ben was named Entrepreneur of the Year at GP Bullhound’s Allstars 2024.

This article is authored by a guest contributor. The views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily represent Microsoft’s position.

The post Rethinking regulation: how CUBE is redefining RegTech with AI  appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

In addition, a McKinsey report states that generative AI could unlock between $240 billion to $390 billion in value for retailers. When combined with non-generative AI and analytics, the total value created could reach into the trillions.

These reports suggest the retail industry is at a pivotal moment. Generative AI is no longer a future concept – it’s actively reshaping how retailers operate and compete. For software development companies, this shift isn’t just a trend to watch, it’s a transformation to build for.

From experimentation to execution

Retail-focused software development companies are no longer just exploring generative AI – they’re deploying it at scale. Microsoft partners are leading the charge, embedding AI into retail operations to deliver measurable outcomes.

Here are four standout examples:

• Blue Yonder is working with Microsoft to build next-generation supply chain solutions powered by generative AI. Their AI copilots help retailers create agile, resilient and sustainable supply chains, connecting data across ecosystems to identify issues and optimise performance in real time.
• Adobe is leveraging Microsoft Azure to deliver personalised customer experiences at scale. Through Adobe Experience Platform and Adobe Campaign, retailers can unify customer data and orchestrate AI-powered journeys across channels – turning insights into action with speed and precision.
• VusionGroup, a global leader in IoT and data solutions for physical commerce, is transforming bricks-and-mortar stores into intelligent, connected assets. By combining generative AI with Azure’s global infrastructure, they enable retailers to optimise store operations, reduce waste, and deliver seamless omnichannel experiences.
• Promo.com, supported by Microsoft partner 2bcloud, scaled its PromoAI product using Azure OpenAI Service. The platform empowers small businesses and agencies to generate branded marketing videos in minutes.

Ultimately, these examples reflect a broader industry shift in how SDCs are building for the future of retail. By co-innovating with Microsoft, partners are accelerating time to value, expanding their reach, and shaping the next wave of AI-powered retail transformation.

Implications for software development companies

For software development companies, the rise of generative AI in retail is more than a technical shift, it’s a strategic inflection point. To support this transformation, Microsoft’s perspective on AI in retail is grounded in four key transformation areas, each offering a blueprint for how SDCs can build differentiated value:

1. Enriching employee experiences
   AI can empower frontline and back-office retail employees with intelligent tools that reduce friction and boost productivity. SDCs can build copilots and task-specific agents that automate repetitive work, surface insights in real time and support decision-making, whether in stores, warehouses or HQ.
   
2. Reinventing customer engagement
   Today’s consumers expect personalised, seamless experiences across channels. Generative AI enables hyper-personalised content, conversational commerce and adaptive interfaces. SDCs can help retailers deliver these experiences by embedding AI into customer relationship management (CRM), marketing and service platforms.
   
3. Reshaping business processes
   From supply chain optimisation to fraud detection, AI is transforming core retail operations. SDCs can create modular, API-first solutions that integrate with legacy systems and modernise workflows, driving efficiency, agility and resilience.
   
4. Bending the curve on innovation
   Generative AI lowers the barrier to experimentation and accelerates time to value. SDCs that embrace co-innovation, working closely with retailers to prototype, test and iterate, can unlock new business models and revenue streams. Leveraging Microsoft’s ecosystem for co-sell, scale and technical enablement can further amplify impact.

How Microsoft partnership supports growth

We view our relationship with software development companies not just as a platform and AI provider, but as a strategic growth partner. Working side-by-side with SDCs, we help them unlock new markets, co-innovate and scale their impact globally.

Whether you’re building a new AI-powered retail solution or modernising an existing platform, Microsoft offers more than just infrastructure. We offer partnership support that includes:

• Collaborating early to shape product direction and align with market needs.
• Co-selling together through our global commercial marketplace.
• Connecting you with customers through curated industry programmes and events.
• Investing in your success with go-to-market support, technical enablement and funding opportunities.

We’re seeing the most successful SDCs treat Microsoft not just as a cloud provider, but as a business development partner – one that helps them move faster, reach further and grow stronger.

Looking ahead

If you’re a software development company building for the retail industry, now is the time to act. By harnessing generative AI, those who move early will shape the future.

As a Partner Development Manager at Microsoft, I work directly with SDCs to help them scale faster, co-innovate with confidence and unlock new commercial opportunities. Whether you’re exploring your first AI-powered solution or looking to expand into new markets, let’s connect and explore how we can grow together in this era of AI-powered retail.

Join the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme

You can start accelerating success today by joining the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme. Meanwhile, we invite you to explore two key SDC resources via our links below – an e-book explaining how to build intelligent apps that elevate user experiences, and a webinar outlining our latest ISV Success resources and incentives. 

Find out more

Download the e-book: Transform ISV Applications with Intelligent AI Personalisation 

Watch the webinar: What is New in ISV Success – AI Benefits and More 

Join the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme

AI-powered retail: Elevating customer experience and operational efficiency

About the author

As a Partner Development Manager at Microsoft, James specialises in strategic engagement with software development companies in the retail and consumer goods sectors. He focuses on identifying and accelerating high-potential partners, particularly those innovating with AI and disruptive technologies. James plays a key role in enabling partner growth through co-innovation, go-to-market strategy and ecosystem alignment.

The post AI in retail: the opportunity for software development companies appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Navigating a new development model

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solutions once frustrated both callers and developers with repeated “sorry, I didn’t understand” messages. In traditional software development, you wrote code to send an API request, parse a defined response and handle known errors in predictable ways. Testing was clear-cut.

Today, with LLM-based agents, development works differently. Developers guide models to say “I don’t know” when appropriate – an essential part of building trustworthy experiences. This requires prompting the model to reason probabilistically, rather than following fixed rules.

The shift means guiding the model to associate customer intent with the correct API call and the necessary parameters to execute the API call successfully – a more flexible, less deterministic approach.

Designing for consistency and clarity

Even small changes in phrasing or context can lead to variations in the model’s interpretation. As a result, evaluating performance is no longer about binary success. Instead, it’s about assessing how reliably the model maps natural language to structured API calls across a wide variety of inputs, edge cases and unseen user behaviour.

With new metrics and processes required, bridging the gap from proof-of-concept to production-grade application becomes a significant business challenge. Indeed, Gartner predicts that at least 30% of generative AI projects will be abandoned after proof-of-concept by the end of 2025. As AI technology advances, aligning enterprise expectations, workflows and development methods will be critical to delivering long-term value.

Voice AI’s transformative promise

Even with these new dynamics, the opportunity for voice AI agents is vast. Contact centres – complex, high-volume environments – may be transformed by agentic solutions that can scale, support human agents or enable autonomous customer experiences.

For the first time, voice becomes a truly intelligent interface. AI agents can interact conversationally, adapt in real time, and generate new insights into customer preferences and the overall customer journey at a previously unimaginable scale.

This isn’t just a new channel – it’s a smarter way to support one of the enterprise’s most personal customer touchpoints.

Building for production: PolyAI’s approach

PolyAI has worked with LLMs since 2017, partnering with leading enterprises like Pacific Gas & Electric, Caesars Entertainment and Unicredit to deploy voice agents that manage millions of conversations with fluency and enterprise-grade reliability.

That experience shaped PolyAI Agent Studio – our enterprise platform designed to help teams build, manage and continuously improve production-grade voice agents.

Powering our platform is a tightly integrated suite of proprietary models: Owl for speech recognition and Raven for reasoning. These models give us something off-the-shelf systems can’t – fine-grained control, deep observability and continuous learning from real-world conversations.

With reinforcement fine-tuning, our agents become more reliable over time, improving how they respond, manage uncertainty and support seamless customer conversations.

Our context-orchestration framework lets developers connect from CRMs, telephony, APIs or user history with precision, allowing personalised, brand-consistent interactions at scale while limiting the risk of hallucinations.

At the heart of our platform is fluency: enabling AI agents to respond with relevance, continuity and clarity.

Deploying with Microsoft Azure

By extending Agent Studio to Microsoft Azure, enterprises gain more control over how they deploy PolyAI agents, whether for compliance, data residency or closer integration with their Microsoft ecosystem.

We’re also building integrations with Dynamics 365 Contact Center and Microsoft Teams, enabling faster deployment of voice AI agents into high-value customer service workflows.

Find out more

Visit the Microsoft Azure Marketplace for more about PolyAI’s solution

Read MIT’s Technology Review Insights Report on Customizing Generative AI

About the author

Michael Chen is the VP of Strategic Alliances and Corporate Development at PolyAI. He leads a team focused on expanding PolyAI’s collaborative relationships with cloud providers, technology partners and global systems integrators. Michael has been on the frontier of the LLM and generative AI revolution since 2020, bringing expertise and perspectives across corporate strategy, customer experience, product marketing and business transformation.

The post How PolyAI helps enterprises deploy production-grade voice AI agents faster appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

The question is no longer if AI fits into legal work, but how to deploy it responsibly and effectively.  

For instance, ContractPodAi has been collaborating closely with Microsoft to develop the next generation of agentic automation using Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI in Foundry Models. This collaboration highlights how AI is rapidly becoming integral to legal workflows, automating routine tasks and placing software development companies (SDCs) at the forefront of the sector’s digital evolution.  

In short, LegalTech is at a pivotal moment, offering huge opportunities to those who get it right. For software development companies (SDCs) building solutions for the legal sector, this wave of innovation presents a unique opportunity and new responsibilities, as reflected in real-world deployments.  

Leveraging Microsoft’s AI and Cloud platform 

For SDCs building these solutions, choosing a secure, AI-ready cloud platform is critical. Microsoft Azure, for example, offers one of the most secure and scalable environments for LegalTech. It meets rigorous standards, such as UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018; ISO 27001, 27017 and 27018 for information security and cloud privacy; SOC 1, 2 and 3 reports; and Cyber Essentials Plus (a UK government-backed schedule) – all essential for handling sensitive legal data.  

Many top law firms and legal SDCs already leverage Azure OpenAI and the Microsoft cloud ecosystem to drive innovation. By integrating Azure’s large language models into legal workflows, they can automate document review, speed up legal research, generate high-quality content and enable intelligent contract analysis.

They can also pair Azure OpenAI with Microsoft 365 tools to jump-start solutions in contract lifecycle management, process automation and legal data insights. In short, building on a trusted cloud with ready-made AI services helps SDCs deliver value faster – without compromising on security or compliance. 

Agentic AI – revolutionising the legal landscape 

AI-powered agents are systems capable of autonomous decision-making and task execution, and they are already helping transform the legal industry. From the perspective of an SDC building solutions, there are several high-impact use cases, as shown in the graphic below:

From startup to scale: how ISV Success empowers software innovators 

If you’re further along in your journey as an SDC, you can leverage our ISV Success programme to expand your solution and accelerate growth. Check out some key benefits in the following graphic:

ISV Success is free to join and the benefits include: 

• Technology access: Over $125,000 in free benefits relating to Azure, GitHub, Visual Studio, Azure OpenAI and more. 
• AI enablement: Access to Azure AI Foundry, GitHub Copilot credits and AI certification vouchers. 
• Marketing support: Co-branding, social promotion, listing optimisation and seller webinars.  
• Training and support: One-to-one technical consultations, community support and 24/7 Azure support. 
• Marketplace Rewards: Performance-based incentives, including Azure grants up to $400,000. 

View all ISV Success programme benefits

Accelerate your go-to-market strategy with the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace 

The Microsoft Commercial Marketplace is a partner-focused platform that helps you grow your reach, simplify your sales process and unlock new opportunities. It’s designed to shorten sales cycles by streamlining procurement, giving you direct access to customers, and enabling customisable deals — through Private Plans or tailored pricing and terms with Private Offers.  

Once your solution is published in our marketplace, customers can: 

• Streamline procurement and speed up onboarding of thousands of SDC and SaaS vendors
• Maximise MACC value with 100% of licence costs counting towards their commitment 
• Stay in control of purchase governance through RBAC, permissions and policies

Join the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme 

Start accelerating success today by joining the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme. Meanwhile, you can use our links below to explore the latest ISV Success programme benefits and learn how developers can create intelligent apps that help elevate user experiences.  

Find out more 

Join the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme 

Explore the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace 

Watch the webinar: What is New in ISV Success – AI Benefits and More 

Get the e-book: Transform ISV Applications with Intelligent AI Personalisation 

About the author 

With a focus on driving partner success, Riz plays a pivotal role in fostering strategic partnerships within professional services. His expertise lies in collaborating with software development companies (SDCs) and other businesses with substantial growth potential, particularly those interested in AI and disruptive market strategies. 

The post AI and cloud innovation: shaping the future of LegalTech for software development companies  appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

We look forward to connecting with many of our customers, partners and peers at the Microsoft Stand, D40. We’re excited to be discussing how Microsoft 365 Copilot is helping give time back to NHS staff and bringing you hands-on demos, including the newly launched Microsoft Dragon Copilot – our groundbreaking AI clinical assistant that streamlines decision-making and enhances the patient experience.

Discover more at the AI Innovation Learning Theatre

As the AI Innovation Learning Theatre sponsor, we’ll also be leading conversations on how responsible AI is empowering the UK’s healthcare workforce and helping teams achieve more. Don’t miss this opportunity to explore the future of healthcare.

Date: 11 June 2025
Time: 10:30 – 10:50
Session: I’ll be taking part in a Fireside Chat alongside Ben Attwood, Oxford University Hospitals
 
Date: 11 June 2025
Time: 12:30 – 13:15
Session: Decoding Copilots and Agents in Healthcare with Microsoft and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
 
Date: 12 June 2025
Time: 09:30 – 10:15
Session: Transforming the NHS: The role of AI in addressing critical challenges with Microsoft, MHRA, Carnall Farrar and others

Partner-powered innovation for NHS priorities

As a further highlight, we’re thrilled to be showcasing the work of six healthcare partners at the Microsoft AI Partner Village on stand D48.

These partners have successfully launched and continue to support innovative and effective healthcare solutions using Microsoft platforms and solutions. Collectively, their expertise helps empower clinical and administrative teams, enhance patient experiences and improve care outcomes.

Read on for a sneak preview of the transformative technologies you can expect to discover and explore at the conference. 

• The Access Group‘s solutions are designed to streamline workflows, reduce administrative burdens, and improve compliance, aligning with NHS priorities and IT standards. At the company’s stand, NHS professionals can see demos of Access Rio Observations and Access Rio Smart Notes, which offer automated dictation, secure integration and enhanced workflow efficiency.
  
  These tools ensure all patient information is accessible in one place, improve documentation accuracy and provide structured templates for consistent note-taking. Join us to understand how smart innovations can enhance patient care and operational efficiency. 
  
• DigPacks harnesses the full capabilities of Microsoft’s Power Platform, including Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI and AI Agents (Copilot Studio), to deliver modern digital solutions across both back-office and clinical workflows. DigPacks will be showcasing different solutions, such as 2Refer – referral processing; DigDocs – document management; and DPIA – governance and compliance.
  
  By reducing manual effort, accelerating turnaround times, improving data accuracy, and strengthening compliance, DigPacks drives meaningful outcomes. Built to align with NHS standards and priorities, the company is endorsed by both NHS England and Microsoft for its impact in healthcare transformation. 
  
• SAS Institute (SAS) is the founder and future of analytics. For decades, SAS has helped customers turn data into actionable insights. SAS Health on Azure can help organisations leverage data for informed decisions. This helps healthcare providers accelerate research, enhance diagnoses, personalise care and prevent disease for better health outcomes. 
  
• Tanium‘s Autonomous Endpoint Management (AEM) leverages AI/ML capabilities built into the platform to drive faster, better decision making and significant business outcomes. All industries including healthcare and the NHS in the UK can benefit from Tanium’s real-time data and remediation. Tanium amplifies Microsoft’s security portfolio with visibility to every endpoint – managed or unmanaged – supporting security and compliance across your environment.
  
  “The ability to use Tanium is a game-changer and lifesaver for us” – Ian Hogan, Chief digital information officer, Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.
  
• Transparity will be showcasing live demonstrations of its AI-powered solutions, along with in-depth explorations of real-world case studies from its customers in the healthcare sector, such as Dorset Healthcare and NHS Bucks. Visitors to the Microsoft AI Partner Village will gain practical insights and examples of how Transparity’s solutions have been successfully implemented.
  
• Trustmarque, in collaboration with the Microsoft Healthcare team, will showcase how its combined expertise is driving efficiencies within the NHS by scaling proven innovations. The presentation will highlight Trustmarque’s successful partnerships with a number of trusts and Arm’s Length Bodies. In addition, Trustmarque will demonstrate the practical applications of generative AI in clinical care. This includes automating routine workflows, streamlining clinical documentation, and providing real-time insights to enhance clinical decision-making and improve patient outcomes.

These overviews represent just a few of the ways we and our partners are supporting the NHS with trusted, AI-powered solutions. Explore more Microsoft AI-powered healthcare innovations in action today.

We’d love to continue the conversation with you at Stand D40, as well as at the Microsoft AI Partner Village and AI Innovation Learning Theatre.

If you work for the NHS or wider public sector, entry is free. To secure your space, visit the NHS ConfedExpo 2025 site.

About the author

Jacob West is Managing Director of Government, Healthcare & Life Sciences at Microsoft UK. With wide-ranging, international experience in commercial, public and not-for-profit sectors, Jacob leads teams that transform public services. He was adviser to two UK Prime Ministers, and has worked across most areas of the public sector.

The post Partnering for progress: transforming the NHS with AI innovation appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

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 

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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