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Change and disruption were the norm

We saw original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers announce investment strategies and product re-alignments across electric vehicle (EV), hybrid, and internal combustion engine (ICE)-powered segments. We witnessed new software-defined vehicle (SDV) platform developments like the introduction of BMW’s Neue Klasse SDV platform, and saw exciting in-vehicle experiences that go beyond traditional screen-projection with embedded and secure vehicle operating systems that offer AI-powered productivity and interactivity as seen with Mercedes-Benz.

There were advances across all areas of vehicle development as the industry grappled with consumer sensitivity around cost, product availability, and a desire for more personalized and connected experiences inside the vehicle.

From hardware to software

As software continues to drive new vehicle development—approaching the scale of billions of lines of code—its importance to vehicle engineering has become critical, even regulated with requirements to maintain software fitness and security over the vehicle lifecycle. Automakers and suppliers are embracing this shift, however, and recognize that with a focus on software and data, they can now offer new products and services that drive unique differentiation and can improve customer value, loyalty, sales, and service. The adoption of cloud and AI technologies has added a force multiplier to this transformation across the entire industry.

While hardware will always be in the mix, we continue to see a focus on reducing the number of vehicle domain controllers and consolidating compute.

Less is more

Less is indeed more, and the goal for automakers when it comes to time to market. With aggressive plans for new vehicle introductions over the next two to three years, OEMs and their suppliers are creating paths to shorten the time it takes to introduce new vehicles and products to market. This is pushing cycles from a typical 48 to 60 months down to 24 to 36 months to remain competitive.

The AI push is real

Across all industries, and especially within automotive, the adoption of AI and AI agents has enabled improvements in design, requirements management, coding, and vehicle engineering functions, leading to enterprise efficiency, rapid innovation, customer satisfaction, and shorter overall development times.

CES 2026—The stage is set

With that said, the stage is now set for 2026 and the annual technology-infused tour de force at CES 2026. For years, CES has been known for highlighting both current and inspiring future technology. This is also true for automotive at CES 2026 as evidenced by the population of exhibitors and attendees over the past few years. It will be interesting to see how that landscape has evolved for this year’s event given the new dynamics at play.

Microsoft for automotive at CES 2026

For the fifth consecutive year, Microsoft will showcase its impact on automotive as the secure technology platform powering the next frontier of automotive innovation. With our cloud and AI solutions, along with our ecosystem of acceleration partners, Microsoft is transforming processes across the automotive “V” model—from requirements and engineering to development and testing.

At CES 2026, we are particularly focused on the transformation within digital engineering, helping our automotive and mobility customers establish strong software capabilities. This includes areas such as SDVs, embedded software, vehicle advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), and autonomy. In addition, meeting OEMs brand differentiation requirements through unique in-vehicle experiences with a focus on the digital cockpit is another core spotlight.

Our customers and partners also seek our differentiation around enterprise-grade security, global-scale cloud, AI copilots integrated across engineering workflows, and an open ecosystem vs. vertically locked platforms. 

At CES 2026, Microsoft and our partners are demonstrating how AI-powered engineering and in-vehicle intelligence are converging to accelerate SDV development and redefine the driver experience.

Digital engineering

Digital engineering demands cloud infrastructure that can scale globally, adapt in real time, and deliver consistent performance across increasingly complex workloads—from AI inference and data-intensive analytics to embedded development and full vehicle simulation. Recent Microsoft Azure innovations remove longstanding compute and operational bottlenecks by supporting heterogeneous architectures such as Arm64, graphics processing units (GPUs), and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), enabling end-to-end engineering from chip to cloud. Elastic scaling empowers globally distributed teams with cloud-native CI/CD pipelines and real-time analytics, while high-performance computing accelerates software-defined vehicle (SDV) development through advanced simulation, validation, and software-in-the-loop testing—allowing teams to move faster, validate earlier, and bring intelligent systems to market with greater confidence. 

We shared some exciting new announcements in both digital engineering and in-vehicle innovation below: 

AMD and Siemens: AMD is providing new engineering support for OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers with the AMD VAS stack running on Microsoft Azure, enabling virtualization of development environments. This integration enables systems-level simulation to support earlier engineering validation efforts aimed at improving efficiency, reducing development risks with SDV development, and reducing time to market. Learn more about the AMD announcement.

With this capability, Siemens will integrate their PAVE360™ digital twin simulation environment into the AMD VAS stack on Azure, providing developer support for AMD compute and graphics technologies. Discussing this and other topics further at CES 2026, Siemens will also feature a panel lineup with President and Chief Executive Officer Roland Busch joined by executives from NVIDIA, Microsoft, PepsiCo, and Commonwealth Fusion. The panel will share a dialog on the impact of AI in transforming the physical world to transform manufacturing, infrastructure, and transportation.

ETAS: As a leading provider of innovative solutions for the development of automotive software, emergency technical assistance service (ETAS) brings its core calibration suite to Azure, enabling automotive engineers to accelerate SDV development through cloud-based engineering tools. The ETAS toolchain on Azure enables OEMs to move software development activities to start an earlier point in time, a term known as “shift-left,” which enables late-stage vehicle development processes to be performed earlier—saving time, improving quality, and enabling faster iteration cycles. Read the blog to learn more.

KPIT: KPIT will demonstrate their Next-Generation Agentic AI Solution Suite at CES 2026—a flexible, cloud-based tool designed to make vehicle software development faster, more reliable, and cost-effective for automakers. By using advanced AI on Azure, KPIT helps OEMs improve the way they design, and build connected and self-driving vehicles. This technology provides more efficient processes to update vehicle software, diagnose and resolve problems more quickly, and deliver better experiences for drivers, leading to higher quality vehicles and more satisfied customers. Learn more.

Neural Concept: Neural Concept focuses on improving vehicle aerodynamics, a critical factor for enhancing vehicle performance, energy efficiency, and reducing development costs. As development timelines in the automotive industry continue to shorten, the demand for data-driven approaches that complement or replace traditional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) workflows become increasingly important. By utilizing the MIT DrivAerNet++ dataset—which contains 8,000 vehicle designs and extensive CFD information, Neural Concept supports advanced research and development in engineering. These innovations empower automakers to achieve design cycles that are 30% shorter. Learn more about Neural Concept at CES 2026.

PTC: Considering speed to market, PTC announced a collaboration with Lamborghini S.p.A to improve overall product lifecycle through their centralized data foundation that connects design, engineering, and operations with enhanced AI capabilities. Also, through their collaboration with Microsoft, PTC will demonstrate a new engineering change management solution—an AI-powered agent to streamline the engineering workflow that has broad applicability even beyond automotive. Meet PTC at CES 2026. 

Renesas: Continuing with the theme of digital engineering and SDV, Renesas, an advanced semiconductor solutions provider, announced an industry first integration to create a vendor-neutral SDV-as-a-Service platform, powered by Azure along with Visual Studio Code integration, GitHub CI/CD pipelines, and Microsoft Copilot AI. The Renesas RoX DevStudio enables OEMs and other partners with cloud-based tools to architect, develop, simulate, test, and deploy SDV architectures, supporting the entire v-model. Discover more with the Renesas blog.

Digital Cockpit and in-vehicle experiences

The rapidly growing in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) market is transforming with new AI-powered experiences improving driver safety, comfort, and even productivity.

Bosch: In collaboration with Microsoft and NVIDIA, Bosch is introducing in-vehicle cockpit innovation at CES 2026. The Bosch AI cockpit, launched as the “AI extension platform,” will provide compute power to enable AI capabilities on the edge to existing vehicle cockpit systems. This is significant in that automakers can use their existing hardware infrastructure in the vehicle. This new platform is powered by NVIDIA’s Drive Orin system-on-chip (SoC), delivering high-performance with only power and Ethernet interfaces, simplifying electrical and electronics (E/E) infrastructure while supporting modern vehicle computing needs. With this powerful platform and the integration of Microsoft Foundry and specialized cockpit features, Microsoft and Bosch are transforming the car into a mobile office without compromising driver safety. This combination not only enables access to Microsoft 365 applications productivity suite and intuitive voice command, but it integrates intelligently with other vehicle systems to prioritize safety and minimize distraction—like enabling adaptive cruise control while on a Microsoft Teams call—demonstrating a key use case for how AI will revolutionize the cockpit and driving experience. Learn more about Bosch innovations at CES 2026.

Cerence AI and NVIDIA: In another milestone collaboration with Cerence AI, NVIDIA, and Microsoft, Cerence announced Cerence xUI^tm , a new, hybrid, agentic intelligence solution for OEMs to meet rising demand for fast, edge/in-vehicle large language and small language model AI to power new in-car experiences operating in a connected or disconnected state. Cerence xUIalso enables access to Microsoft 365 applications productivity suite with multi-lingual, multimodal conversational language, supporting intelligent multi zonal support, so not only the driver, but also each individual passenger can talk to the car and have access to Microsoft 365 applications, using Microsoft security products and best practices. Learn more at CES 2026.

FORVIA: Building on the existing Microsoft Teams integration work from 2025, Appning by FORVIA collaborates further to bring AI-powered experiences enabled by Microsoft Foundry Tools to the Appning Apps market ecosystem. This collaboration supports advanced conversational interfaces, content, and services for personalized user experiences. Learn more.

TomTom: The location technology experts at TomTom combine their mapping and traffic intelligence data in a unique platform that gives OEMs ultimate flexibility in creating unique, branded, and connected experiences delivered in weeks instead of months. The platform also builds on the Microsoft Cloud and generative AI capabilities into the TomTom AI Agent.

Microsoft for automotive and our partner ecosystem

In addition to the partners making announcements at CES 2026, we will showcase a vibrant partner ecosystem supporting automotive and mobility including:

Microsoft is committed to partnering with OEMs and suppliers to accelerate SDV development, modernize engineering, and deliver intelligent, differentiated in-vehicle experiences. Learn more about Microsoft for automotive.

The post CES 2026: Powering the next frontier in automotive appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Historically, logistics has lagged other industries in digital transformation. More than 75% of industry leaders acknowledge that their sector has been slow to embrace digital innovation. Instead of prioritizing digital transformation, companies have traditionally focused on incremental improvements in operational processes. But in today’s fast-moving market, this approach is no longer enough as customer expectations have also evolved dramatically. A staggering 91% of logistics firms report that their clients now demand seamless, end-to-end logistics services from a single provider.¹

AI has become a game-changer for the industry to help overcome challenges and fulfill customer expectations. From enhancing customer experiences—such as shipment planning and service requests—to driving productivity in core supply chain operations and demand forecasting, AI presents a massive opportunity. AI can also improve safety, sustainability, and workforce reskilling, giving employees more time to focus on customers. The numbers speak for themselves: AI-powered innovations could reduce logistics costs by 15%, optimize inventory levels by 35%, and boost service levels by 65%. Over the next two decades, AI adoption in logistics could generate between $1.3 trillion and $2 trillion per year in economic value.² 

In fact, the AI revolution in logistics is already underway, and Microsoft is at the forefront, empowering businesses with Azure’s cloud capabilities and cutting-edge AI solutions.

With this article, Microsoft releases two new reference architectures—Adaptive Cloud for Logistics and Supply Chains and AI-enhanced experiences for Logistics and Supply Chain, enhanced functionalities in Dynamics 365 for Supply Chain, and showcases partner-led offerings.  

The use cases 

What are the use cases that AI can impact in logistics? The answer is simple: Almost everywhere along the value chain. This covers inbound logistics and outbound logistics as well as supporting activities, see the overview below: 

Inbound logistics 

One of the most critical use cases in supply chain optimization is demand forecasting. Accurate predictions by AI can serve as the foundation for downstream activities—driving efficiency and enhancing overall optimization. For example, precise demand forecasts play a key role in inventory management and storage optimization within warehouse management systems.  

SPAR Austria, a leading food retailer with over 1,500 stores, has significantly improved its demand forecasting capabilities through AI-powered solutions built on Microsoft Azure in collaboration with Microsoft partner Paiqo. This advanced implementation has achieved more than 90% forecast accuracy, leading to a 15% reduction in costs by minimizing waste.

AI-based route optimization can lead to significant fuel cost reductions, which is a substantial cost-saving measure for logistics companies and contributes to sustainability goals. Load management algorithms and real-time data analytics maximize space utilization in trucks, vessels, and warehouses. 

Additionally, AI-based scheduling, booking, shipping, and invoicing have significant impact on flexibility, cost, and operational process efficiency.  

Dow Chemical, a global leader in materials science, faced significant challenges with its existing freight invoicing system, which involved up to 4,000 daily shipments and various types of invoices. A newly developed invoice agent built with Microsoft Copilot Studio streamlines the company’s freight invoicing process by monitoring incoming emails for attached invoices, structures the data for analysis, and scans for billing inaccuracies. This automation helps Dow manage its logistics spending more efficiently, reducing potential overpayments and improving operational efficiency.

Outbound logistics 

AI and robotics play a crucial role in optimizing picking and packing processes. Additionally, advancements in technology enhance order processing and returns management—streamlining operations and driving cost reductions. 

Cutting-edge technologies like natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning are transforming customer interactions by reducing handling times and associated costs. With the deployment of virtual assistants and every day customer support, businesses can improve response times significantly.  

Global sports retailer Decathlon, in partnership with Microsoft partner Parloa, has successfully leveraged AI to enhance customer service. By implementing AI-powered solutions, the company has reduced the number of calls forwarded to live agents by 20%, demonstrating the power of automation in improving efficiency and streamlining customer interactions.

Supporting activities 

AI and emerging technologies are transforming key support processes across the logistics value chain. In procurement and pricing, for example, AI-powered agents streamline the request for proposal (RFP) and request for quote (RFQ) process. Additionally, dynamic pricing capabilities optimize revenue management, while AI-powered advancements enhance traditional finance and controlling functions. AI also plays a crucial role in simplifying customs management and ensuring seamless regulatory compliance. 

Below is an overview of solutions from independent software vendors (ISVs) and partners that can be leveraged out-of-the-box for selected use cases: 

• Wandelbots: Robotics for picking and packing
• Paiqo: Demand forecast
• InstaDeep: Load optimization
• Fareye: Route planning and optimization
• Parloa: Customer service
• Coneksion: Messaging
• CH Robinson: Mail AI agents
• Cosmo Tech: Supply chain simulation

3 building blocks for a digitized state-of-the-art logistics 

From a Microsoft perspective, there are three key building blocks for logistics and supply chain companies to build an AI-ready platform that can enable a variety of use cases: 

1. Adaptive Cloud: The modular base infrastructure 
   Microsoft adaptive cloud unifies siloed teams, distributed sites, and sprawling systems into a single operations, security, application, and data model across hybrid, multi- cloud, edge, and Internet of Things (IoT) environments. 
2. Microsoft Dynamics 365 suite: Microsoft’s comprehensive business suite 
   Dynamics 365 suite, including Supply Chain Management, offers comprehensive solutions to enhance visibility, streamline procurement, optimize fulfillment, and improve planning. 
3. AI and agentic AI: Solutions to automate business processes 
   Microsoft offers advanced agentic AI solutions which enable the creation and orchestration of agent- and multi-agent systems for enhanced productivity and automation. 

Adaptive cloud: The modular base infrastructure 

Within the logistics domain, adaptive cloud can address multiple areas for increased efficiency such as quality control, warehouse operations, damage detection, or robotics automation. With the capabilities of the full Azure stack on the edge, IoT operations, and a data fabric, adaptive cloud is the essential lever for improving business both in the cloud and on the edge. 

Adaptive cloud shifts organizations from a reactive posture to one of proactive evolution, enabling people to anticipate and act upon changes in market trends, customer needs, and technological advancements ahead of time. This strategic foresight enables businesses to pivot quickly, embrace continuous improvement, and integrate new technologies smoothly. By building resilience into their operational models, businesses can optimize resource usage and mitigate risks before they manifest. 

The adaptive cloud can be adapted or selectively applied to multiple customer scenarios. We map how commitments and promises are realized by system skills and capabilities below:

• Operate with AI-enhanced central management
  Elevate IT capabilities and focus on strategic work by abstracting resources from distributed locations into one operations and management layer with AI assistance and automation. 
  Critical capabilities:
  • Universal AI assistant, portal, and tools
  • Consistent configuration management
  • End-to-end observability
  • Governance at scale
  • Built-in security and control
• Rapidly develop and scale applications across boundaries
  Bridge OT and IT gap to transcend legacy system constraints with composable cloud-native tool chains, containers, and data services everywhere.
  Critical capabilities:
  • Kubernetes everywhere
  • Hyperscale cloud services to the edge
  • Central application deployment
  • Global orchestration and resiliency
  • Streamlined DevOps integration
• Cultivate data and insights across physical operations
  Supercharge physical operations with a unified data foundation, enabling efficient workflows, predictive insights, and cost-effective resource utilization from edge to cloud.
  Critical capabilities:
  • Common data foundation
  • Actionable insights with AI Coordinated workflow orchestration from edge to cloud
  • Contextualized data to information
  • Centralized device management

Dynamics 365 suite: Microsoft’s comprehensive business suite

The Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management portfolio outlines various stages and components of the supply chain process, divided into several categories, from design to decommission to record to report. The table below indicates the bandwidth of the suite capabilities: 

Microsoft Copilot enhances supply chain management by leveraging AI and automation. By integrating Dynamics 365 with AI-powered Copilot, organizations can significantly enhance their supply chain management processes. The combination of advanced AI capabilities and comprehensive business applications ensures that supply chain operations are efficient, responsive, and adaptive to changing conditions.  

The new Warehouse Management Only Mode is a specialized feature within Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management (and can also be used standalone) designed to cater specifically to warehouse management processes. This mode allows businesses to set up a legal entity dedicated solely to warehouse operations, providing warehousing services to other legal entities within Supply Chain Management or even to external enterprise resource planning (ERP) and order management systems. 

AI and agentic AI: Solutions to automate business processes 

The new AI-enhanced reference architecture for logistics brings it all together—from the connection to existing data systems to AI-enhanced experiences for various user groups like end-customers, warehouse managers, fleet managers, or customer service: 

The user-facing applications layer describes some of the common front-end experiences that can be built using Microsoft services. End users require mobile and web applications built using services such as Azure API Management, Azure App Service, and Azure Functions. Developers create AI-powered user experiences leveraging services such as Azure OpenAI Service. These applications can be deployed in Azure tenants and can scale to millions of users.  

Business users leverage Dynamics 365 (including Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Project Operations, and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights) to manage business operations such as claims, promotions, and ticketing. Dynamics 365 has built-in custom agents for many common business use cases such as customer service, sales, finance, field service, and customer insights.

Front line workers are fully integrated into the business with customized workflows and automated operations with custom AI, tailored to their needs and the ergonomics of their workplaces, whether fixed terminals, mobile devices, or augmented reality.  

Microsoft Copilot Studio facilitates the creation of custom AI agents to support their work. Power Apps enable the creation of custom user interfaces, while Power Automate enables the creation of business workflows. With Microsoft 365 Copilot, employees can collaborate and communicate using Microsoft products such as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Outlook. 

The operation of supply chain and logistics generates large amounts of data. The data storage and analytics layer describe how to securely store business data to support operations and create insights. 

Microsoft Dataverse is a scalable data platform that securely stores and manages business data. The data model is a structured framework that organizes data in tables with relationships. It is possible to use industry models to harmonize and integrate business data across multiple applications.  

Microsoft Fabric is an end-to-end data and analytics platform that includes real-time analytics capabilities. OneLake is a unified logical data lake that centralizes and simplifies data management, with multiple analytical engines and workspaces. Fabric enables organizations to process and analyze data for timely insights and decision-making. Supply chain and logistics are established businesses. It is important to integrate existing data systems, such as connected assets as well as existing systems. 

Messaging services on Azure enable connectivity to assets and devices using standardized communication protocols such as Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) with Azure Event Grid, or data streams like Apache Kafka using Azure Event Hubs. Serverless solutions like Azure Functions provide compute to process messages. 

Get in touch with us 

Customers can work directly with Microsoft Industry Solutions teams on custom projects that offer a short go-to-market time. Whether you choose ready-to-deploy partner solutions or bespoke projects with Microsoft partners or Microsoft Industry Solutions, we provide the expertise and support to ensure your success.  

Visit Microsoft for travel and transportation or contact our team to learn more and take the next step in your Microsoft AI journey.

Microsoft for travel and transportation

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¹ Accenture, Freight and Logistics: Finding the right path to digital transformation, 2023.

² McKinsey, Digital logistics: Into the express lane?, December 2024.

The post The future of logistics: How generative AI and agentic AI is creating a new era of efficiency and innovation appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

The mobility industry is undergoing a transformative shift, driven by rapid advancements in data and AI. Generative AI and agentic AI are revolutionizing how vehicles are designed, manufactured, sold, and used—becoming crucial to the development of software-defined vehicles (SDV), advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), autonomous driving (AD), and in-vehicle customer experiences. Generative AI is a game changer, redefining research and development (R&D) and product design. It’s helping automotive manufacturers realize time and cost savings, as well as quality improvements, by adding value at all stages of the R&D process. Agentic AI systems leverage a combination of rules, logic, and machine learning to function autonomously, adapting to real-time data and executing complex workflows. For instance, agentic AI can enhance efficiency and effectiveness across the enterprise, including customer engagement, supply chains, manufacturing, internal training, and overall process optimization.    

Microsoft is committed to supporting the automotive industry with cutting edge technologies, an ecosystem of partners, and industry-specific reference architectures and toolchains—helping automotive companies enable game changing autonomous agents, accelerate their digital transformation, and quickly monetize their innovations. The future of mobility is being shaped by AI, and Microsoft is here to enable the automotive industry to drive that change forward.  

Microsoft for mobility

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Here are some highlights of Microsoft’s solution portfolio for the automotive and mobility industry:

Microsoft reference architectures for mobility

• Design and engineering
  • PLM on Azure
  • Azure Innovation Accelerator ^{new AI agent} 

• Vehicle platform  
  • Software Defined Vehicle ^{new AI agent}
  • Digital Cockpit ^{new AI agent}
  • Autonomous Vehicle Operations ^{new AI agent}  

• Mobility services and customer experience 
  • Mobility Agents ^{new AI agent}
  • Connected Mobility ^{new AI agent}
  • AI for Airlines and Airports ^{new AI agent}
  • Digital Selling
  • Unified View of the Customer  

Microsoft reference architectures are crafted to offer essential structure and guidance for industry engineers and architects, enabling them to achieve agile business value. Solutions leveraging these mobility industry reference architectures are accessible through our network of qualified partners and in-house expert consultants, Microsoft Industry Solutions Delivery. Whether you are looking for an off-the-shelf solution or a hyper-personalized custom delivery, Microsoft industry reference architectures enable cutting edge innovation for all.  

Design and engineering solutions 

Product Lifecycle Management migration reference architecture

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions are one of the most mission-critical applications for automotive manufacturers, serving as a source of truth for digital product definition and configuration across the manufacturing lifecycle. Moving PLM to the cloud has become imperative as pressure increases for innovation—accelerating software and hardware content, time-to-market, quality, and sustainability. This is a critical foundation where automotive companies can unlock innovation with AI, and in doing so realize real value—reducing design cycle times, improved productivity efficiencies, improved quality, enhancing existing products, and developing new, differentiated, and innovative products—ultimately getting new products to market faster. AI-powered PLM and design and engineering solutions are transforming highly complex automotive engineering today. The Microsoft Azure PLM migration reference architecture provides an overview of common and recommended implementation choices, terminology, technology principles, common configuration environments, and composition of applicable Azure services that unlock this AI-powered innovation as part of your digital thread of multi-disciplinary design and engineering solutions, including PLM, Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), mechanical and electrical computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), simulation, and analysis.

PLM on Azure partners

Azure reference architecture

Azure Innovation Accelerator (Azure IX) is an Azure-cloud based transformation toolkit helping teams reduce time-to-value covering technology, process, and culture. This offer can be used as a neutral tenant collaboration platform for multiple teams and partner ecosystems and offers a high security production-grade environment within weeks. Enabled with AI, Azure IX enhances communication, data sharing, and project management, ensuring that every team can work together seamlessly. AI capabilities are already built-in out-of-the-box to utilize existing content. Automotive customers are leveraging Azure IX to create automated driving platforms that integrate a data-driven and agile development architecture to run advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving (AD) pipelines in a safe and neutral environment. Leveraging AI, this platform processes vast amounts of data, enabling rapid development and deployment of ADAS and AD technologies. This collaboration exemplifies the power of AI in driving the future of mobility. 

Vehicle platform solutions  

Software-defined vehicle reference architecture

In the evolving landscape of SDVs, where vehicle functionalities traditionally governed by intertwined hardware and software are now decoupled, virtualized, and steered predominantly by software, several industry challenges emerge—managing software complexity, adapting to evolving technology, and increasing consumer demands. SDVs require a new approach to the design and development of vehicle software and hardware architectures, as well as the tools and processes to manage them.

Microsoft’s software-defined vehicle reference architecture enables a modern cloud-native SDV software development toolchain that uses Microsoft’s strong developer-centric tooling. The reference architecture covers development, testing, and delivering high quality software. This is further supported by open source, community-based in-vehicle software components and stack contributions as part of the Eclipse Foundation SDV Working Group. These contributions define key components and features to facilitate integration, deployment, and management of various vehicle functions and services. 

Software-defined vehicle partners

Digital Cockpit reference architecture  

The Digital Cockpit reference architecture integrates AI services to enhance customer in-vehicle experiences, transforming the way users interact with their vehicles. By incorporating AI, the Digital Cockpit creates a personalized and intuitive user experience, making every journey more enjoyable and efficient. With customers like Mercedes-Benz, TomTom, Audi, SAIC, MG, NIO, XPeng, Sony Honda Mobility and Lynk & Co, the Digital Cockpit is redefining the future of in-car technology and user interaction. 

Digital Cockpit partners

Autonomous Vehicle Operations reference architecture 

Autonomous Vehicle Operations (AvOps) is the digital testbed for autonomous driving development that integrates all development processes into one platform. This revolutionary platform brings together every aspect of autonomous driving development, creating a seamless and efficient environment for innovation. By leveraging AI, AvOps ensures that every stage of development, from initial design to final testing, is optimized for performance and safety. With prominent customers like Wayve, Sony Semiconductor Solutions, Bosch, Claas, Denso, NVIDIA, Ansys and Voxel51, AvOps is setting the standard for the future of autonomous driving.

AvOps partners

Customer experience solutions  

Mobility Agents reference architecture

Mobility Agents are transforming the mobility industry by enabling copilot and AI assistant use cases across the entire mobility value chain, from R&D to Aftersales. These agents, built on industry-specific AI models, seamlessly integrate into user experiences, enhancing both customer and employee interactions. By leveraging AI, Mobility Agents significantly improve efficiency, accuracy, and user satisfaction, making them indispensable tools for automotive companies. Leading companies like CarMax, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volvo, Bosch, BMW, Nissan, KPIT, and Maruti Suzuki are utilizing Mobility Agents to streamline operations and enhance customer interactions. For instance, Toyota’s O-Baya agents employ AI to provide valuable support throughout the entire lifecycle of a vehicle—from research and development to aftersales service. Mobility Agents are at the forefront of this transformation, empowering partners to build advanced mobility solutions that integrate AI to boost productivity and decision-making, ultimately accelerating the automotive sector’s transformation.  

Mobility Agent partners

Connected Mobility reference architecture

Connected Mobility accelerates value derived from vehicle and asset data combined with analytics, geophysical, and back-office technologies to manage vehicle operations. By harnessing the power of AI, Connected Mobility transforms raw data into actionable insights—optimizing vehicle operations and enhancing overall efficiency. With customers like Volvo, Diamler Trucks, BWT Alpine, Porsche Motorsports, HERE Technologies, Netstar, Navistar, Annata, and BMW, Connected Mobility is at the forefront of the smart transportation revolution, driving innovation and value across the industry.

Connected Mobility partners

AI for Airlines and Airports reference architecture

The AI for Airlines and Airports reference architecture is the first in our portfolio for mobility in the aviation industry. The reference architecture is designed to enhance critical areas of airlines and airports, from passenger experience to operational efficiency. Industry-specific AI models seamlessly integrate into various touchpoints, providing enhanced experiences for both travelers and airport staff. Leveraging AI, this architecture improves efficiency, accuracy, and user satisfaction, making it an indispensable tool for airlines and airports. Companies like American Airlines, Lufthansa, and Miami International Airport are utilizing this architecture to streamline operations and enhance customer interactions. For example, AI-powered solutions are being used to provide real-time updates, personalized travel recommendations, and efficient crew coordination, ensuring a seamless and enjoyable journey for passengers. 

AI for Airlines and Airports partners

Digital Selling reference architecture

The Digital Selling offering is a comprehensive digital retailing offer that empowers mobility service providers and marketers to use AI for promoting hyper-personalization while building customer trust and increasing brand loyalty and profitability. This solution leverages AI to deliver tailored marketing campaigns and personalized customer experiences, driving engagement and loyalty.  

Digital Selling partners

Unified View of the Customer reference architecture 

The Unified View of the Customer provides a blueprint for new revenue generation and customer-centricity. By leveraging AI, this solution offers a comprehensive and holistic view of each customer, enabling personalized and targeted marketing strategies. Leading automotive companies enhance their platforms to improve user experience and connectivity, showcasing the transformative potential of AI in creating customer-centric solutions that drive revenue and loyalty. Additionally, the profile-centric approach delivers significant value and benefits to both the customer and the company. For customers, it unifies data that was once siloed, such as vehicle maintenance schedules, finance, payment, and vehicle features. For companies, this data can inform large-scale trends among customers and enable targeted benefits. Furthermore, the Unified View of the Customer serves as the foundation for generative AI customer-facing chatbots, assistants, and agents. 

Explore Microsoft mobility solutions

Customers can work directly with Microsoft Industry Solutions teams on cutting-edge custom projects that offer a short go-to-market time. Whether you choose ready-to-deploy partner solutions or bespoke projects with Microsoft partners or Microsoft Industry Solutions Delivery, we provide the expertise and support to ensure your success. With Microsoft, you can leverage the value of agentic AI, accelerate your digital transformation, and quickly monetize your innovations. We’re here to help you lead the future of mobility quickly, creatively, and securely. 

Microsoft in mobility and manufacturing industries 

• Learn more about Microsoft for automotive and manufacturing. 
• Read the documentation for Microsoft reference architectures for mobility and Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing. 

The post Revolutionizing mobility: Solutions for an AI-powered future appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

• Toyota is deploying AI agents to harness the collective wisdom of engineers and innovate faster
• BMW Group innovates with Azure for 10 times more efficient data delivery
• How CarMax organized and scaled innovation with Microsoft AI solutions

The platform for AI-enabled innovation

A wave of profound transformation is driving rapid progress in automotive, mobility and manufacturing, fueled by advancements in software and data. In automotive for example, vehicles are now defined as much by their digital as their physical content, a trend further accelerated by advancements in AI. Generative AI and agentic AI are revolutionizing how vehicles are designed, manufactured, sold, and used, including the development of software-defined vehicles (SDV), advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), autonomous driving (AD), and in-vehicle customer experiences.

The versatility of software-defined vehicles and AI have been proven to boost competitiveness, operational efficiency and create new revenue opportunities. A key to this acceleration is effectively integrating software-driven product lifecycles into automotive product design and development. Leveraging the Microsoft Azure platform to modernize engineering systems can help navigate this revolution, enabling shorter development vehicle development timelines, reduce cost, and improved quality and collaboration.

Powering change across automotive, mobility, and manufacturing

Microsoft and our partners are enabling transformation across automotive, mobility, and manufacturing in four focus areas:

1. Design and engineering

Addressing the needs for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers to design, build, test, and validate new vehicles, and deliver them to the market.

• Modern design and engineering in the cloud
• SDVs
• Connected fleets and products
• Automated driving
• In-vehicle and digital cockpit

2. Factory

Improving factory utilization through proactive system-wide visibility and management, to enhance workforce efficiency and safety.

• Connected workforce
• Factory process optimization
• Modernized factory edge

3. Supply chain

Building resiliency and sustainability into the extended automotive supply chain to aid in sourcing and selection, shipping, and warehousing.

• Visibility and risk management
• Forecasting and planning
• Warehousing and fulfillment

4. Customer experience

Creating engaging, differentiated services and connected experiences both inside and outside the vehicle to deliver long-term customer value and satisfaction.

• In-vehicle connected services
• Consumer and commercial marketing and sales
• Warranty, service, and repair

Automotive industry highlights for CES 2025

For CES 2025, we are focusing on design, engineering and vehicle experience in automotive. Below is a selection of recent announcements and collaborations, including CES and Microsoft Ignite.

Design and engineering—supporting the automotive development process with engineering and toolchain support, including improvements in requirements and specifications.

• PTC: Integrating AI into their application lifecycle management (ALM) solution, PTC Codebeamer with Codebeamer Copilot, focused on requirements authoring and analysis.
• Siemens: Siemens and Microsoft bring AI-enhanced NX X to Azure for advanced product engineering.
• NVIDIA: Live sessions and showcase at CES.
• Ansys: Meet your engineering goals with the speed and scale of Ansys Access on Microsoft Azure, a new cloud engineering solution for seamless scalability.
• Kontrol, TÜV SÜD, and Ansys: A virtual homologation toolchain to redefine how automotive manufacturers meet global regulatory compliance and safety standards.
• A2MAC1: Providing OEMs with a solution to speed development and meeting sustainability goals through enhanced supplier selection based on sustainability criteria.

Software defined vehicle, automated driving, and engineering toolchain—(SDV), autonomous driving, in-vehicle/digital cockpit:

• Eclipse Software Defined Vehicle: Automotive Open-Source Summit May 2025.
• Blackberry QNX: Accelerating building, testing and development of software defined vehicles in the cloud for automakers.
• Cognata and Ansys: Collaborating on a web-based virtual environment to test and validate automated driver assistance systems, and autonomous vehicle functionalities that mimic real-world conditions.
• dSpace: In collaboration with GitHub on generative AI usage for software-in-the-loop (SIL) testing and virtual electronic control unit (V-ECU) development to aid in more efficient validation pipelines.
• Excelfore: Enhancing long-term product lifecycle management through generative AI supported automotive over-the-air (OTA) campaigns for vehicle software updates and features.
• Harman Automotive: Collaborating on new software products to power the future of Automotive.
• Bosch: For safer roads: Bosch teams up with Microsoft to explore new frontiers with generative AI.

In-vehicle—digital cockpit and advanced AI assistants for driver safety, convenience, and enhanced experience.

• Cerence: Introduces pioneering embedded small language model, purpose-built for automotive.
• TomTom: For specialized areas at CES: Driver Experience, Future of Driving, Orbis Maps and enterprise.
• Pioneer: Connected motorcycle and smart dash with video AI analysis for driver operation support and crash detection.

Security—Vehicle cybersecurity and lifecycle management

• CyberArk & Device Authority: Creation of a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) reference architecture for Internet of Things (IoT) security to ensure robust factory and edge environment security, access management, and device lifecycle protection.
• Cymotive Technologies: Announcing a new automotive vulnerability management system available on the Azure Marketplace.
• VicOne: Collaborating to provide developers of vehicle software with proactive security of vehicle firmware to ensure end-to-end protection across the automotive software lifecycle.

New adapted AI models for industry

Adapted AI models, developed in collaboration with industry partners, expand our industry capabilities and enable organizations to address their unique needs more accurately and effectively.

Adaptive cloud

At Ignite 2024, Microsoft made a variety of exciting announcements regarding how customers can gain a competitive advantage with a unified approach to data and AI: collect data from any source, process and analyze that data locally and globally for AI-enabled insights anywhere, and securely share those insights with employees and the ecosystem.

New industry reference architectures—providing a faster path to value

At CES 2025, we are announcing six new reference architectures, and updates to previously released reference architectures. Learn more about our reference architectures.

New AI Agent reference architectures for 2025

• Autonomous vehicle operations 
• Digital cockpit
• Mobility agents 
• Connected mobility
• Software defined vehicle 

Updates to previously released reference architectures

• Azure innovation accelerator
• Digital selling  
• Unified view of the customer  
• Product lifecycle management (PLM) on Azure 

Industry-aligned reference architectures are available through our partner ecosystem and Microsoft Industry Solutions Delivery. They provide essential guidance for engineers and architects to leverage a defined framework, supporting a wide array of scenarios, ultimately providing a faster path to value.

Microsoft in mobility and manufacturing industries

Learn more about Microsoft in Mobility and Manufacturing.

Learn more about Microsoft reference architectures for Mobility and Manufacturing, including our Mobility reference architecture updates for CES 2025.

The post CES 2025: Advancing the future of automotive and mobility appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

The aviation industry is entering a new era: airlines and airports worldwide are on the brink of transformation, driven by the power of generative AI. This powerful technology is creating new value at every stage of the aviation ecosystem, revolutionizing the way we fly and operate. From personalized travel offers to instant responses for customer service requests, AI is enhancing every step of your journey, making travel smoother and more personalized than ever before.

Generative AI is also transforming the core operations of airlines and airports. Research shows that up to 35% of flight delays can be reduced through AI-powered decision-making—saving time, reducing stress, and increasing safety for both travelers and staff.¹

AI is also reshaping the workforce. With streamlined tasks and smarter tools, staff can dedicate more time to enhancing the passenger experience—both on the ground and in the air. AI-powered personalization can increase revenue per passenger by 10 to 15%. At the same time, intelligent AI chatbots can reduce customer service costs by up to 30%, creating significant value for both airlines and airports.²

This is the future of aviation. AI is not just a tool—it’s a revolution, creating value across the entire industry. Microsoft has developed a new industry reference architecture enabling AI for a seamless traveler journey, efficient airline operations, and enhanced airport operations. 

Seamless traveler journey

The experience begins the moment a traveler considers a trip. They can interact with an AI-powered mobile app to explore options, book flights, and receive personalized recommendations. Throughout their journey, the app serves as a digital assistant, providing real-time updates on flight status, gate changes, and the weather at the destination. At the airport, travelers can navigate through a touchless experience, from check-in to security, using biometric identification and e-boarding passes on their mobile devices. The app continues to assist by guiding them to their gate, offering lounge access, and updating any travel alerts.

Once on board, the digital assistant ensures a comfortable experience by allowing travelers to control in-flight entertainment, order food and items from the onboard shop, and adjust seating preferences through their mobile device. The journey concludes with the app facilitating a smooth arrival process, including customs and baggage claim guidance, and arranging for ground transportation. Throughout this journey, AI and machine learning algorithms work behind the scenes to anticipate needs, offer timely assistance, and personalize the travel experience.

Air India passengers, for example, now get answers to all their questions from planning to arrival at their fingertips. Their AI.g virtual assistant, powered by Microsoft AI services, quickly proposes a travel itinerary for passengers, finds answers about check-in options and flight status, recommends the best food options, finds the next business lounge or helps with lost luggage. Another example is Saudia Airlines. The flag carrier of Saudi Arabia developed an AI-powered travel companion for their passengers using Microsoft technology to enable travel-related services like: planning and booking, refund management, and exploring new destinations.

Efficient airline operations

AI working on data platforms enhances efficiency and customer experience across various segments of the airline value chain.

• In aircraft handling, AI-powered predictive maintenance can forecast potential issues before they occur, minimizing downtime and ensuring timely operations. Ground support equipment can be optimized using AI algorithms to streamline processes and reduce delays.
• In ground operations, AI can manage complex logistics, from baggage handling to fuel management, by analyzing vast amounts of data to optimize workflows and resource allocation. This leads to smoother operations and can significantly reduce turnaround times for aircraft.
• Flight operations benefit from AI through advanced analytics that can assist in route planning, weather forecasting, and fuel consumption optimization. By leveraging historical data and real-time inputs, AI can provide pilots and flight planners with insights that lead to safer and more cost-effective flights.
• For marketing and sales, AI enables personalized customer experiences by analyzing customer data to tailor offerings and promotions. This can lead to increased customer loyalty and revenue as airlines can offer the right product to the right customer at the right time.
• In customer support, AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants provide around the clock support, handling inquiries and resolving issues promptly. This not only improves customer satisfaction but also frees up human agents to deal with more complex queries, enhancing overall service quality.

Lufthansa, for example, developed the one data platform built on Microsoft Azure to provide self-service applications and leverage cognitive AI services like image and speech recognition.

“Leveraging Microsoft Azure’s robust cloud capabilities, we’ve transformed Lufthansa’s operations with a unified data platform. This innovation empowers us to optimize every aspect of our service, from ground operations to in-flight experiences, ensuring punctuality and safety across our global network—continuing to use AI will help us advance to the level.”

Ganesh Swaminathan, Head of Platforms, Lufthansa Group Digital Hangar

American Airlines, the world’s largest airline, is using Azure as its preferred cloud platform. Their team members now use the ConnectMe app for the latest crew information while the airline is using AI to reduce taxi time and turn times at gates.

Microsoft AI

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Enhanced airport operations

Generative AI and data platforms also play a pivotal role in enhancing airport operations, catering to the needs of tens of thousands of passengers daily. Airports can optimize their critical infrastructure management, such as energy, water, and climate control. The integration of AI into security and emergency services significantly enhances their capabilities, providing a safer and more secure environment for travelers. Connected transportation systems such as buses and trains benefit from predictive analytics and real-time data processing capabilities, leading to improved scheduling and passenger flow management.

In the realm of commerce, which encompasses retail stores and restaurants within the airport, generative AI and data platforms offer valuable insights into consumer behavior, enabling businesses to tailor their services and inventory to meet the dynamic needs of passengers.

The logistics and supply chains for cargo, fuel, and baggage are also transformed by these technologies, with AI-powered systems facilitating better tracking, forecasting, and management of resources. This results in a more streamlined and cost-effective operation, reducing delays and enhancing the overall passenger experience. Fraport has introduced FraportGPT, an example of an employee-facing app powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to streamline internal processes.

“Fraport’s company GPT app, powered by Generative AI, has been a resounding success, swiftly adopted by our team. It’s not just streamlined our processes; it’s accelerated skill acquisition, empowering our employees to master new competencies with unprecedented speed.”

Christian Wrobel, Chief Data Architect, Fraport AG

Together with Microsoft, Miami International Airport (MIA) has developed a centralized data hub environment, known as the Common Data Environment (CDE), to store, manage, and share business data, apps, and business process flows. This is crucial for breaking down data silos and ensuring data accessibility for analysis and helps unlocking additional value from generative AI.

“By integrating various data sources, including on-premises, cloud, and edge environments, we provide a unified and scalable platform for data management. This is the basis, and together with our partner Microsoft we will now be able to leverage advanced technologies such as AI, machine learning, and IoT to gain insights, make data-driven decisions, and drive innovation.”

Maurice Jenkins, Chief Innovation Officer, Miami International Airport

The overarching reference architecture and partners

Our common architecture for airports and airlines is built among core elements with the ultimate goal to create AI-enhanced experiences for everyone, from passengers to ground personnel: the creation of user-facing applications, data storage and analytics, and data ingestion and integration of existing data systems.

The AI-enhanced experiences are tailored to each user group.

• For passengers, it is all about a smooth journey from origin to destination, with plenty of time to enjoy travel with retail, entertainment, and restaurant offers.
• Ground staff and customer service focus on making the passenger experience smooth, even when something goes wrong.
• Pilots and crew members require support for coordination, communication, and the reduction of their management overload.
• For technicians, it is about knowing where to go next, reducing cognitive workload for maintenance and repair tasks, and automating documentation.
• Terminal managers require support to manage traffic, ensure security, and provide travel comfort.
• For airside operators, it is about managing baggage, refueling, and safety.

Different user groups require different backend applications and data sources. The user-facing applications layer describes some of the common front-end experiences that can be built using Microsoft services.

• End users require mobile and web applications built using services such as Azure API Management, Azure App Service and Azure Functions. Developers create AI-powered user experiences leveraging services such as Azure OpenAI Service. These applications can be deployed in Azure tenants and can scale to millions of users.
• Business users leverage Dynamics 365 (Customer Service, Finance, Project Operations, and Customer Insights) to manage business operations, such as claims, promotions, and ticketing. Dynamics 365 has built-in custom agents for many common business use cases such as customer service, sales, finance, field service, and customer insights.
• Front line workers are fully integrated in the business with customized workflows and automated operations with custom AI, tailored to their needs and the ergonomics of their workplaces—wherever fixed terminals, mobile devices, or augmented reality. Microsoft Copilot Studio facilitates the creation of custom AI agents to support their work. Power Apps enables the creation of custom user interfaces, while Power Automate enables the creation of business workflows.
• With Microsoft 365 Copilot, employees can collaborate and communicate using Microsoft products such as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Outlook.

The operation of airports and airlines generates large amounts of data. The data storage and analytics layer describes how to securely store business data to support operations and create insights.

• Microsoft Dataverse is a scalable data platform that securely stores and manage business data. The data model is a structure framework that organizes data in tables with relationships. It is possible to use industry models to harmonize and integrate business data across multiple applications.
• Microsoft Fabric is an end-to-end data and analytics platform that includes real-time analytics capabilities. OneLake is a unified logical data lake that centralizes and simplifies data management, with multiple analytical engines and workspaces. Fabric enables organizations to process and analyze data for timely insights and decision making.

Airports and airlines are established businesses. It is important to integrate existing data systems, such as connected assets as well as existing systems. Messaging services on Azure enables connectivity to assets and devices using standardized communication protocols such as Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) with Azure Event Grid, or data streams like Apache Kafka using Azure Event Hubs. Serverless solutions like Azure Functions provide compute to process messages.

We’re also proud to collaborate with leading partners driving innovation in aviation.

• Amadeus and Microsoft have formed a global strategic partnership that harnesses cloud technology to innovate and explore new products and solutions and create smoother travel experiences.
• SAP deployments on Azure provide robust cloud solutions tailored to customer needs.
• Our partnership with SITA, and their SITA Mission Control solution, helps duty personnel anticipate and respond to real-time changes during flight operations.
• We also integrate independent software vendors (ISVs), such as SmartKargo, PROS, and Satavia, to contribute to a smarter, more connected aviation ecosystem.

Creating frontline worker experiences

Frontline worker experiences are highly customized to the task and require constant adaptation. The power of low-code platforms like Power Apps and Copilot Studio significantly reduce the time to value, allowing for rapid development and deployment of tailored solutions. These platforms enable the integration of multiple data sources, such as location-based services, logistical information from Dynamics 365, and documentation search. Additionally, task support is enhanced through the use of knowledge graphs and manuals, while collaboration and information regarding connected assets are seamlessly incorporated.

Overcoming the challenges of using AI in aviation

While the potential of AI in aviation is immense, there are key challenges: defining the most valuable AI use cases, setting up cloud infrastructure, organizing the data estate, and minimizing costs during development, testing, and deployment phases.

Microsoft addresses the challenges of AI in aviation by working closely with partners, establishing a framework for responsible and trusted AI principles, and leveraging its comprehensive suite of tools and services. It helps define valuable AI use cases through collaborative workshops and industry-specific solutions. Azure provides scalable cloud infrastructure, while Microsoft Dataverse and OneLake streamline data management. Cost efficiency is achieved through optimized development, testing, and deployment processes. Additionally, Microsoft provides extensive training programs to equip employees with necessary AI skills and collaborates with regulatory bodies to ensure compliance with legal frameworks governing AI usage.

Moving forward with generative AI in aviation

Taking advantage of generative AI requires a pragmatic approach, where existing solutions are combined with new capabilities and partner solutions. Correctly identifying the use cases with the highest priority and impact is critical for success.

Visit Microsoft for travel and transportation or contact our team to learn more and take the next step in your AI journey.

“We’re excited to introduce our new reference architecture for the aviation industry, built on Azure’s cloud capabilities and advanced AI tools. What truly makes this effort stand out is our collaboration with leading aviation partners. Together with our partners, we’re shaping the future of the aviation industry.”

Julie Shainock, Managing Director Travel & Transportation Industry, Microsoft

“Microsoft’s Industry Solutions team is ready to help you deliver and implement AI-driven solutions across your organization: From a first [proof of concept] POC to full-scale rollouts, we are dedicated to providing the expertise you need to ensure a smooth and successful deployment.”

Eric Chaniot, General Manager of AI Industry Solutions, Microsoft

“At Microsoft Cloud for Industries, we are committed to empowering our partners with proven patterns and comprehensive enablement resources. By leveraging our industry-specific solutions and collaborative approach, we help partners accelerate innovation, streamline operations, and deliver exceptional value so that their customers can achieve more.”

Monica Ugwi, General Manager Cloud for Industries, Manufacturing & Mobility, Microsoft

¹Worldmetrics: AI in the Airline Industry, 2024.

²The economic potential of generative AI, McKinsey & Co., 2023.

The post AI solutions and data platforms for the aviation industry appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

1. Amplify human ingenuity with a copilot for everyone: Offering built-in and extensible AI capabilities in Microsoft Copilot to help people be more productive, creative, and efficient.
2. Deliver transformational experiences with build-your-own intelligent apps: Making it easy for customers and partners to build their own copilot solutions using the same stack and AI services Microsoft used to build its own copilots.
3. Safeguard business and data with a trusted AI platform: Microsoft has demonstrated leadership and delivered powerful tooling to help build safety and responsibility into AI solutions from the start—this includes guidance and best practices around responsible AI as well as secure AI principles that empower organizations with an end-to-end cyber risk approach that reinforces human control.

Part of enabling customers to adopt AI and deploy copilots includes empowering partners. Microsoft helps partners benefit from its unified data estate platform to create personalized, role-specific AI that can empower customers with meaningful and relevant experiences. Copilots can enhance development capabilities and allow partners to share the value of their domain experience with customers, reinforcing their commitment to innovation and excellence. Partners can extend and customize existing copilots from Microsoft or modify how copilots assist with core business functions, such as human resources, sales, or customer service interactions.

Building with partners

Partners play a crucial role in extending Microsoft’s offerings to customers with their domain expertise. When tailored to specific roles, copilots can personalize generative AI experiences, offering access to relevant business flows and data, when and where users need it.

The partners featured here have created copilots and AI platforms that support a wide range of industries and lines of business:

• TomTom has created its Digital Cockpit to turn cars into conversational companions.
• Modern Requirements has created an AI work item and requirements management assistant for healthcare, finance, automotive, aerospace, government, and defense industries.
• Dynatrace has developed Davis® AI which empowers countless use cases, supporting Microsoft Azure customers in areas like observability and security.
• Intellect Design has developed generative AI-powered copilot which allows a relationship manager to generate valuable insights from ISO 20022 payments repository data thereby helping corporations manage their funds better.
• Datamatics has created a partner onboarding copilot to help streamline and reduce the time spent on the onboarding process for vendors, partners, and more.
• MiHCM has developed an AI-powered human resources (HR) copilot called MiHCM SmartAssist.

TomTom

The TomTom Digital Cockpit is an open, modular in-vehicle infotainment platform. Their new AI-powered voice assistant enables users to engage in natural conversation with their cars and tackle complex driving requests. The voice assistant can handle follow-up questions and maintain contextual understanding, which means users can engage in multi-turn conversations and get relevant responses.

Key features include:

• AI-powered voice interaction: The digital cockpit enables natural voice communication with the vehicle, allowing drivers to control navigation, infotainment systems, and vehicle settings through voice commands.
• Integration with Microsoft Azure: TomTom utilizes Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Kubernetes Service to provide a robust and scalable infrastructure, supporting advanced data handling and AI capabilities that enhance responsiveness and personalization.
• Customizable user interface: Automotive manufacturers can customize the digital cockpit to match their brand’s aesthetics and functionalities, making it adaptable to different vehicle models and consumer preferences.
• Cost efficiency: The system offers a cost-effective solution that reduces development expenses by up to 80%, providing a sustainable and economically viable option for car manufacturers.

Modern Requirements

Copilot4DevOps Plus is an AI-powered work item and requirements management assistant, which can be utilized by multiple industries such as healthcare and medical devices, finance, automotive, services and technology, aerospace, government, and defense. This tool, seamlessly integrated with Azure DevOps, optimizes requirement workflows with an easy-to-use interface and improves the requirements management process by enabling several key functions:

• Efficiency and productivity: It allows teams to focus on meaningful work by automating repetitive tasks and improving collaboration. In addition to powerful AI elicitation, analysis, conversion, and summarization, it gives teams cutting-edge features like pseudocode generation, dynamic prompts, and test script creation.
• Enhanced quality and security: Copilot4DevOps improves the quality of requirements by analyzing and refining them according to best practices in technical writing. It also incorporates Microsoft and OpenAI’s latest security features to help ensure data security.
• User control and customization: Users have the final say over the AI-generated content, with options to pick, edit, and refine outputs as per their specific needs.

Copilot4DevOps Plus is available as an add-on with Modern Requirements4DevOps or as a standalone in the Azure and Visual Studio Marketplaces.

Dynatrace

The Dynatrace platform delivers AI-enhanced cloud observability, security, and overall operational efficiency for global enterprises across all industries. With Davis® AI copilot, Dynatrace combined its predictive and causal capabilities and generative AI, built with Azure OpenAI, to bring Dynatrace Davis® hypermodal AI to market. This boosts the technical capabilities of IT teams by simplifying complex processes, enabling businesses to focus more on innovation and less on operational management.

Key features include:

• Davis® AI Engine: This core component leverages predictive, causal, and generative AI to provide deep insights and actionable recommendations. It automates tasks like anomaly detection, root cause analysis, and workflow automation, significantly reducing the manual effort required in managing complex IT environments.
• Predictive operations: The platform predicts potential issues before they impact operations using AI to forecast and automate responses, thereby ensuring reliability and proactive management of IT systems.
• Intelligent observability: Dynatrace uses AI to analyze real-time data across applications, services, and infrastructure. This helps in pinpointing issues quickly and accurately, which is crucial for maintaining optimal operational performance.
• Automation and integration: The platform’s automation capabilities extend to auto-discovery, auto-instrumentation, and auto-baselining, ensuring comprehensive coverage and real-time, dynamic responses to changes within the IT landscape.
• Azure native software as a service (SaaS): Azure Native Dynatrace Service seamlessly provides deep cloud observability, advanced AI for IT operations (AIOps), and continuous runtime application security capabilities native to all Azure customers empowered with Azure OpenAI generative capabilities

Intellect Design

The iGTB Copilot helps banking professionals generate insights and provide cross-sell assistance in commercial and corporate banking. It leverages generative AI to streamline operations and client interactions, allowing relationship managers to spend less time on manual data analysis and more on strategic client engagement. Here are the key functionalities:

• Comprehensive payment analysis: It enables users to perform detailed analyses of historical payment data, helping to identify trends and patterns without the need for any programming skills. It also helps in identifying delayed payments.
• Visual data summarization: The iGTB Copilot can automatically transform complex data into easily understandable visual graphics and provide insights and suggested actions.
• The iGTB Copilot, composed on the Purple fabric of eMACH.ai, is powered by Azure OpenAI, GPT-4 Turbo model, and other Azure infrastructure services.

Datamatics

Datamatics Copilot for Partner Onboarding is integrated with Microsoft Teams and leverages Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Teams bot framework, and Azure OpenAI technologies. The application is designed to streamline the onboarding of vendors, business partners, freight forwarders, and employees across different geographies, making what is traditionally a complex and tedious process much more efficient.

Key functionalities include:

• Natural language querying: Users can query the status of onboarding processes and receive updates using conversational language.
• Automation and integration: The Copilot automates the creation of partner records and integrates seamlessly with other business systems for efficient data management.
• Real-time updates and communication: Enables prompt communication with partners about their onboarding status, including rejections, directly from Teams.
• Document management: Maintains and enforces compliance by specifying required documents for each country, ensuring partners submit the correct documents.

MiHCM

MiHCM SmartAssist is an AI-powered HR copilot designed to streamline HR processes. This tool is part of the MiHCM platform and offers a range of functionalities and customizations that simplify various HR tasks.

Key features include:

• Document generation: SmartAssist, built on top of Azure with services, including Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, Azure App Service, and Azure SQL Database, and leveraging Microsoft’s Copilot framework, can quickly generate employee letters with just a few keystrokes. It ensures that these documents are personalized by dynamically incorporating employee data.
• Job description creation: It automatically generates job descriptions that reflect the company’s unique voice and tone, including key performance indicators (KPIs), qualifications, and experience requirements.
• Customization capabilities: Users can easily adjust the content generated by SmartAssist, ensuring the output meets their specific needs.
• Data analysis and reporting: SmartAssist leverages employee data to analyze and calculate statistics, generate reports, and provide information at high speeds, enabling business leaders to make informed decisions quickly. This tool can answer high-level questions, going beyond mere facts and figures to provide valuable insight quickly. Information that would take days to gather can now be analyzed and provided in seconds.

Next steps to adopt AI and deploy copilots

• Check out our digital session at Microsoft Build 2024, that discusses enabling independent software vendors (ISVs) to transform industries in the age of copilots.
• Assess the drivers of AI success so you can realize meaningful business impact with AI.
• Learn how to power your AI transformation with Microsoft.
• Learn more about creating generative AI experiences with Microsoft Cloud across many Microsoft solutions.
• Envision boosted creativity and work productivity with Copilot for Microsoft 365 and learn how to extend it.
• Start using GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Copilot for Sales, now generally available.
• Learn how to build safety and responsibility into your AI journey from the start.
• Learn more about the featured ISVs: TomTom, Modern Requirements, Dynatrace, Intellect Design, Datamatics, and MiHCM.

The post Building AI solutions with partners: Empowering transformation with copilots appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Not surprisingly, AI, and in particular generative AI, was at the core of nearly every single conversation as one of the biggest and most disruptive transformative forces to impact the industry in recent memory. The question heard often was how to turn that excitement into action and tangible business outcomes. Microsoft had the opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to the broad adoption and application of AI, and how our focus is bringing our capabilities to the industry in a way that solves deep business problems and creates new opportunities.

Generative AI will impact the entire mobility value chain—from customer experiences both inside and outside the vehicle, research and development (R&D) and design, core operations, and workforce skilling and empowerment.

Accelerating the future of mobility

Digitally transform the automotive industry

Discover solutions

Making an impact with AI

During CES 2024, our customers and partners shared with us their incredibly exciting AI journeys. We talked about where they are today and where they want to be in the next 12 months. While we see companies at various stages of AI maturity, they all have one thing in common—they are all looking for cost-effective ways to harness the power of AI to drive value faster in their own businesses.

As I reflected on our conversations, five key areas came to mind where AI can make the biggest impact for mobility companies:

1. AI is enabling the next generation of digital cockpits

Spoken language remains the most suitable way to interact with a vehicle—to keep hands on the wheel and the eyes on the road. Generative AI enriches conversational experiences. Think “ChatGPT in the car.” Moreover, with a growing ecosystem of third-party integrations into Microsoft Copilot, bringing the driver’s digital life into the vehicle becomes easier than ever before.

We believe that this will spark the next generation of in-vehicle experiences. Our approach is to build an open ecosystem of best-in-class products and technologies, enabled by the Microsoft Cloud and leading AI capabilities. Just as important is the understanding that automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) want to build differentiated experiences and don’t want to be disintermediated from their customers. Our approach aims to provide OEMs with:

• Ownership of the total brand experience.
• A deeper relationship with the end customer.
• Flexibility to adopt technology stack for their own needs.
• Protection of end-user data and privacy.

Supporting this growth, notable partnerships were announced during the lead up to and at CES 2024, amplifying how partners are leveraging Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and ChatGPT to provide OEMs and their customers with next generation in-car experiences.

TomTom announced their partnership with Microsoft and demonstrated their “digital cockpit” concept at CES 2024 to provide a more natural, conversational way to interact with vehicle features and information sources both inside and outside of the vehicle in a way that is safe and efficient. This solution will allow an OEM to provide a differentiated and unique cockpit experience that also preserves their own brand identity. This “in-cockpit” experience represents significant focus and growth across the ecosystem.

A new collaboration with Cerence focuses on the future of connected mobility. Cerence announced an in-car assistant that leverages ChatGPT and Azure OpenAI Service to support OEMs to implement next generation experiences into new vehicles as well as provide the ability to retroactively upgrade existing customer-owned vehicles—extending customer value through access to more frequent feature updates and generating new revenue opportunities for OEMs.

Current customer stories include an in-vehicle productivity integration with Microsoft Teams from Lynk & Co, creating a seamless, hands-free way to stay productive on the go, and the AI-powered digital companion Mercedes-Benz developed using ChatGPT. This solution has dramatically improved the responsiveness and accuracy of the in-car voice assistant by providing more meaningful answers to queries and enabling context driven communications that are beyond simple vehicle or navigation type questions. In a true execution of innovation “at the speed of AI,” Mercedes-Benz was able to envision, develop, test, and deploy this solution in just 12 weeks.

2. AI is creating more value-driven customer experiences

The desired goal for mobility companies including automotive, transportation, and logistics providers is driving increased customer loyalty, growth, and retention. When we talk about the shift from physical to digital, a focus on improving customer experience is a key outcome.

This software-powered expansion creates new revenue-generating opportunities like subscription models, new apps and features, and an improved service experience. Companies are creating new service offerings and even revamping the way customers shop, select, order, and experience the delivery of new products and services.

With the ability to share information across data ecosystems, it is possible to have a multi-modal, frictionless travel experience whether that is in a car, public transportation, or airline, for example. The developments of AI along with a software-driven focus provide longer-term value for the customer and revenue benefits for the organization.

An additional customer experienced focused announcement made during the week of CES 2024 included KPIT, with their creation of a new solution that also employs Azure OpenAI Service for root-cause diagnostics to improve time to first fix and reduce “no-trouble-found” warranty claims enabling improved customer satisfaction and retention for dealerships.

3. AI is accelerating product innovation

Successfully developing and launching a vehicle has become increasingly complex. At the same time, the competitive landscape has changed dramatically as new entrants outside of traditional OEMs that are already “software native” become more prevalent. As a result, we see our customers looking to apply AI to accelerate time-to-market and increase R&D productivity.

A growing development is the desire for OEMs to shift from hardware to software with software defined vehicles (SDV). This represents a significant change to how a vehicle is developed, enhanced, and maintained, and opportunities exist to support open collaboration across the industry to help advance the maturity of SDV.  

Supporting this development area, Microsoft is a contributor to the open-source collaboration of OEMs, suppliers, and technology providers in the Eclipse Software Defined Vehicle working group with contributors from across the value chain enabling non-differentiating advancement of SDV for the industry.    

SDV toolchain was featured at CES 2024 with the announcement by AVL, a leading mobility technology company using Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and GitHub Copilot to create new opportunities for OEMs to utilize cloud native capabilities that aid vehicle software development. This new capability can significantly reduce development time for software defined vehicles, improving innovation and time to market. 

Digital engineering enables automotive OEMs to connect data across the product lifecycle to transform the way they design, build, and deliver products. The opportunity for AI exists across autonomous development, SDVs as mentioned above, knowledge discovery, and generative design. We believe AI has the potential to do for product development what the Internet of Things (IoT) has done for production in the manufacturing space.

Software development is at the forefront of this. According to a report by McKinsey, software and electronics related to digital engineering will account for 50% of total car costs by 2030, compared to 35% in 2020. More importantly, software-related features and services will generate about 30% of total automotive revenue by 2030, up from less than 10% in 2020.¹ This means that automotive companies need to shift their focus from what was primarily manufacturing, selling, and servicing vehicles to providing value-added software solutions that enhance the mobility experience of their customers. AI and digital engineering are enabling this, allowing products to be delivered to market in less time.

An example highlighted at CES 2024 was the announcement with Cognata, where AI is used to aid the virtualization of automated driver assistance (ADAS) and autonomous vehicle (AV) sensors in a simulated environment. The efficiencies gained will aid OEMs with their validation and integration processes to bring new automated driving features to market faster.

As companies use the power of AI and digital engineering to differentiate, we believe our core value is in enabling the transition with our customers, by building the “platform for platform creators” with our trusted and secure cloud-enabled services such as Azure, AI and Microsoft Copilot, Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, and our partner ecosystem.

In my next blog, I will dive deeper into this topic and share my thoughts about ways companies can accelerate R&D with generative AI.

4. AI is enabling deep insights into operational performance

To better serve your customers and develop innovative products and solutions, you need to have a tuned operation and supply chain. Manufacturing has made incredible advancements in efficiency with information technology (IT), operational technology (OT), and IoT technology enabling automation, data insights, and analytics. Now with AI, not only is this data leveraged to aid decision-making but it can also be harnessed to drive innovation in solution development, aiding operations and frontline workers in areas such as anomaly detection, problem-solving, and real-time collaboration as our customers ZF and Siemens illustrate.

5. AI is also improving productivity in the back office

In the culture of “do more with less,” Microsoft has long provided the ability for individuals and organizations to achieve more. Tools and open-source environments like GitHub spark creative, problem-solving application development. Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams offer streamlined collaboration and productivity for back-office environments, and Dynamics 365 enriches sales, marketing, and frontline worker data integration that empowers companies to lead their digital transformation.

AI is already helping people and teams be more creative in their work—improving personal productivity and reducing the routine, repetitive elements across functions. We are betting big on AI copilots which use generative AI to empower people and augment their capabilities and ingenuity, while keeping them in control of the final decision-making process and outcomes. This means the workforce can focus more on value-driven projects, freeing up time—and money—to invest in skilling and innovation realization.

Enabling innovation—Mobility reference architectures

Our customers are looking to Microsoft to help them accelerate the adoption of AI and the development of advanced mobility solutions. They also seek to do this in a way that enables control of their brand identity and experiences with their customers.

At CES 2023, Microsoft launched three mobility reference architectures. At CES 2024, we released an additional four. Together, these seven reference architectures help our partner ecosystem leverage the Microsoft Cloud and AI solutions to support their customers across research and development, manufacturing, supply chain and logistics, marketing, sales, and aftersales. You can learn more about these reference architectures and supporting ecosystem on our mobility documentation page.

A look ahead

We leave CES 2024 excited about the immediate future that AI and other developments supporting the automotive, travel, transportation, and logistics industries will bring. We extend our appreciation to our customers and partners who supported us at CES 2024 and are embracing the paradigm shift that is creating tremendous opportunities across the mobility ecosystem. I look forward to diving deeper into discussion on these and other important mobility topics in my upcoming blogs.

• Explore announcements at CES 2024 from Microsoft.
• Learn how you can accelerate the future of mobility.
• Stay up-to-date on the latest from the Microsoft Industry Blog.

¹ McKinsey & Company, Outlook on the automotive software and electronics market through 2030, January 2023.

The post Learning from CES 2024: 5 ways AI is reshaping the future of mobility appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

To support businesses in meeting these goals, Microsoft announced three mobility reference architectures at CES 2023. In 2024, we are adding four new reference architectures to our industry portfolio. These new resources help our partner ecosystem support their customers in driving the future of mobility across research and development, manufacturing, supply chain and logistics, marketing, sales, and aftersales.

Microsoft mobility documentation

Make the most of mobility with docs and supported reference architectures

Discover more

Microsoft reference architectures for mobility

• Software defined vehicle toolchain ^new
• Mobility Copilot ^new
• Azure Innovation Accelerator ^new
• Autonomous vehicle operations
• Connected fleets
• Unified view of the customer ^new
• Digital selling

Microsoft reference architectures are designed to provide structure and guidance for project managers, enterprise architects, and IT managers to deliver agile business outcomes. Solutions utilizing the mobility industry reference architectures are available through qualified partners and Microsoft industry solutions.

Software defined vehicle toolchain reference architecture

The software defined vehicle (SDV) toolchain reference architecture enables a modern cloud-native software development toolchain leveraging strong developer tooling services with additional functionality specific to automotive. The reference architecture covers continuous development, testing, and delivery of high-quality software.

This plug-and-play approach provides the following benefits:

• Reduces the time to onboard new developers and increases code quality using generative AI.
• Accelerates development, testing, and validation of automotive software by shifting left—testing earlier and more often in the development process to improve software quality and development speed.
• Reduces reliance on in-vehicle silicon with highly configurable and flexible virtual electronic control unit (ECU) and virtualized hardware in the loop (HiL) environments on Microsoft Azure.
• Supports compatibility with edge and in-vehicle silicon by offering equivalent compute on Azure.
• Supports the validation process by having a common infrastructure for deploying software artifacts from verification through software-in-the-loop (SiL) to test fleets and collecting “interesting data” to drive changes to the software.

The SDV reference architecture includes the following elements:

• Development tooling using proven Microsoft tools to increase developer productivity and collaboration such as GitHub, GitHub Copilot, Microsoft Dev Box, and Visual Studio Code. These tools are extensible with automotive-specific functionality from partners.
• The SDV development, validation, and integration reference architecture provides orchestration services that allow you to manage deployment environments and target configurations to accelerate your testing and verification on virtual ECU and virtual HiL solutions in the cloud.
• Azure services provide foundational capabilities, such as deployment environments, compute virtualization, and data storage. Microsoft Fabric provides data and analytics services.
• Azure networking provides connectivity to on-premises, HiL validation environments.
• The Azure and GitHub marketplaces simplify integration of partner offerings for tooling and virtual images.

Mobility Copilot reference architecture

The Mobility Copilot reference architecture enables various use cases across the value chain to increase productivity, unleash creativity, and drive innovation with AI. The architecture supports scenarios in research and development, production, marketing and sales, in-vehicle services, and after-sales or repair with cutting edge architecture built on the latest AI models with diverse UX paradigms for optimal customer and employee journeys.

• Copilots for engineering requirements: AI-based assistant to empower engineers to optimize vehicle performance and design from aerodynamics and fuel efficiency to safety and aesthetics.
• Copilots for production quality and efficiency: AI-based assistant that increases production efficiency by analyzing quality data from development, customer experience, production, and other sources to detect quality issues.
• Virtual customer assistant: Conversational engagement for marketing, sales, and customer service channels to answer product-or-concern-related questions, qualify leads, drive sales, and increase efficiency through automation.
• Onboard AI assistant: In-vehicle voice assistants to improve natural language understanding and expand the range of driver and operation interaction.
• Copilots for vehicle diagnostics and repair: AI assistant for automotive repair workshops to improve vehicle diagnostics, streamline maintenance tasks, and offer real-time insights to mechanics.

Mobility Copilots enable the following unique value propositions:

• Best-in-class AI models: Multi-modal enterprise-grade models within Azure based on Azure OpenAI Service, for example GPT 3.5 Turbo, GPT-4, and DALL-E technology.
• One-base architecture: The versatile base architecture addresses a wide-array of use-cases for maximum efficiency and adaptability.
• Easy to plug-in: The architecture can be seamlessly integrated into existing architectures, providing swift deployments.
• Unified data sourcing: Seamlessly integrate multiple data sources including structured and unstructured data.
• Responsible and secure: Azure OpenAI Service instances are isolated from every other customer—the data is not used to train the AI model and is protected by comprehensive enterprise compliance and security controls.

Companies like Mercedes-Benz have already started to implement Microsoft AI-based solutions across the value chain such as production, sales and marketing, and in-vehicle services. Other industry examples include GM, Amadeus, CarMax, and Air India.

Azure innovation accelerator reference architecture

The Azure innovation accelerator (Azure IX) is an end-to-end cloud solution providing modern, flexible, and secure Azure-based IT infrastructure that is built and maintained by a highly skilled DevSecOps team. The solution can be implemented within six to eight weeks, facilitating fast innovation. This approach optimizes time to value and provides a secure environment for single or multiple companies to collaborate with minimal data management burden. This architecture can be used for various scenarios that require agile collaboration including partner ecosystem enablement, high security environments, short-term quality investments, quick-deployments, or limited IT capability.

This rapid deployment solution offers the following benefits:

• Turnkey solution: Ready-made state-of-the-art infrastructure based on a Microsoft blueprint and environment enables fast roll-out.
• Fully managed solution: To ensure infrastructure is available and up to date without taxing customer resources.
• Security as a service: Microsoft provides various managed security modules available through the platform to service the highest security demands.
• Defined governance model: Defined governance models allow trustful collaboration and joint control of the platform to protect assets and IP.
• Flexible partner collaboration: Enabling onboarding of developers from different companies with different policies to become productive on one joint platform.
• Change built-In: The platform and the managed components provide a flexible change approach based on demands.
• Focus on generating value: Burden of maintenance, change, and administration is low by design through an agile collaboration model.
• Split billing: The cost incurred can be distributed among the partners through defined split.

 The Azure innovation accelerator architecture consists of the following elements:

• Azure IX is clustered in platform infrastructure and the corresponding DevSecOps builds and runs a dynamic Azure-based cloud environment.
• The platform infrastructure consists of the mandatory Azure IX Solution Core with embedded processes based on agile principles for security and convenience.
• Azure IX provides base packages for operations tailored to the customer use case.
• Besides the full Azure and Microsoft product stack, the DevSecOps team can run and maintain third party tools and even customer tools by arrangement. The team provides immediate support and resolution for development and operations within one team, a key differentiator amongst the competition.
• The main building blocks of Azure IX are shown in the diagram below.

Within the automotive industry, Azure IX can be used as a base platform to quickly advance all mobility services including SDV, Mobility Copilots, and autonomous vehicle development. One of Azure IX’s first successful use cases has been in advancing autonomous driving development. Advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) technology needs strong collaboration between various stakeholders in the development of new functions that require a highly flexible, secure environment built for change.

Unified view of the customer reference architecture

The Microsoft unified view of the customer reference architecture brings all sources of customer data together, enabling deep insights and hyper-personalized mobility use cases for automotive and industrial original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and dealers in travel, aviation, and in mobility-as-a-service. The customer 360 blueprint sets the foundation for a unified customer data platform (such as data integration, pipelines, and consent handing) to combine relevant data sources into one single view of the customer.  

Some of the benefits of this architecture include:

• Improved customer experience: The architecture provides a 360-degree view of the customer, enabling businesses to deliver personalized experiences across channels and touchpoints.
• Increased efficiency: By consolidating customer data sources, businesses can reduce the time and effort required to access and analyze customer data with “zero extract, transform, and load (ETL)” integration and “zero-data move”.
• Better decision making: The architecture enables businesses to gain deep insight into customer behavior and preferences, which can be used to make data-driven decisions.
• Increased revenue: By delivering personalized experiences and improving customer satisfaction, businesses can increase customer loyalty and revenue.
• Secure insight: A personalized ID guards customer insights ensuring consent is handled clearly and seamlessly and insights are at the touch of the customer’s digital fingertip.

Unified view of the customer is based on a harmonized data model using Microsoft Fabric to provide customer core data including unified customer identity. The architecture illustrates how live customer interactions are processed through event stream and real-time analytics, then integrated with marketing content to create a comprehensive customer 360-degree profile through Microsoft Fabric. This profile is enriched with data from third-party marketing clouds and central marketing channels, which is then analyzed for insights and recommendations using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.

Customers like Amadeus are leveraging customer centric solutions to create more choice for their customers, better quality service, and smoother trip experiences.

Connected fleets reference architecture

The Connected fleets reference architecture enables faster, lower cost, higher value fleet management solutions—such as asset management and field service—by simplifying value extraction from connected vehicle data, streamlining integration with business systems, and facilitating specialized analytics.

The Connected fleets integration framework enables partners to build value-added solutions with unique capabilities, while also enabling the customer to take advantage of key solutions such as Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Azure OpenAI Service. This eliminates the need for fractured and expensive solutions built from multiple sources, allows faster development and time to value, and utilizes the Microsoft Cloud to reduce costs. With flexible, standards-based data ingestion, the architecture supports existing connected vehicle solutions, OEM feeds, or data exchanges as appropriate. This flexibility helps to increase scope and reduce cost of vehicle data acquisition.

The Connected fleets reference architecture is enabled by the following partners: Accenture, Cognizant, Connected Cars, DSA, Hitachi Zero Carbon, HCL Technologies, Luxoft, Mojio, Netstar, STZRE, and TomTom. A live instantiation of the power of composing multiple partner solutions together is now available and underpins a new demo shown first at CES 2024, as illustrated in the following graphic:

Autonomous vehicle operations reference architecture

The autonomous vehicle operations (AVOps) reference architecture provides an integrated, end-to-end workflow for developing, verifying, and improving ADAS and autonomous vehicles (AVs).

Industry-leading Microsoft Azure cloud services are provided to integrate with your tool chain, while our partners complete a strong, industry-vetted global, secure, and hyper-scale cloud-based development platform that spans development, validation, runtime deployments, and feedback loops.

Regardless of level of autonomy, developing a self-driving software stack and bringing a new car to market presents a series of workflow challenges:

• Efficient ingestion of terabytes or even petabytes of data daily generated by fleets of test vehicles.
• Software and AI update requires validation through simulation with massive amounts of computing power.
• Petabytes of data and peta-scale computing is expensive—delivering on time and within budget is challenging.
• How do you accurately validate and test performance?

AVOps provides a templatized digital testbed that can be spun up on demand, shared across the entire value chain, and used to shorten time-to-market. This approach helps our automotive customers transform themselves into software and AI companies.

The architecture also helps optimize operational ADAS and AV workflow coordination and feature development, verification, and validation through:

• DataOps: From edge to cloud, the orchestration of petabytes of data to support parallel workstreams.
• DevOps: Scaling the continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) pipeline.
• MLOps: Scaling machine learning pipelines and integrating with CI and CD pipelines.
• ValidationOps: The ability to accurately simulate software and AI updates across all edge cases.

How generative AI can help

Generative AI can help reduce the complexity, cost, and time of developing and testing autonomous driving systems across simulation, validation, optimization, and personalization. Use cases include generating synthetic scenarios, validating sensor data, optimizing driving behavior, and personalizing user experience.

The AVOps reference architecture provides a collaborative, open framework built on common processes that helps automate, manage, and closely monitor the validation processes for software and hardware deployment. The following Microsoft partners provide additional value-added capabilities to this framework: Ansys, Akridata, Applied Intuition, Cognata, dSPACE, and Linker Networks.

Digital selling reference architecture

The digital selling reference architecture enables reinvention of the traditional customer journey by transforming real-life spaces into an immersive and interactive digital environment that reaches a wider range of customers.

The reference architecture enables unique, efficient, and immersive ways to engage with consumers by unlocking the power of the metaverse to improve communications, sales, and operations. Enhanced by partner capabilities, focus areas include digital marketing, e-commerce, high-fidelity 3D rendering, and industry-specific systems. By integrating disparate data from the customer, field service, and dealer management systems, improved visibility, collaboration, and data insights can drive more personalized, multi-channel customer experiences. Through the digital selling reference architecture, cloud and partner capabilities, OEMs, dealers, and mobility, service providers now have the flexibility to enhance in-person interactions along with enabling new digital customer engagement models.

The following announcement by Fiat highlights the transformative impact of digital selling.

A group of curated expert partners will drive innovation while providing excellence in omnichannel fulfillment, immersive and virtual user experiences, and end-to-end process coverage. These partners include: Sitecore, Adobe, Touchcast, Annata, and Stella Automotive AI.

Reinventing the customer journey

Microsoft in mobility and manufacturing industries

• Explore Microsoft solutions in mobility and Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing.
• Learn more about Microsoft reference architectures for mobility and manufacturing.

The post Accelerate automotive transformation with new solutions from Microsoft appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Supporting these objectives, Microsoft has created reference architectures that enable its partner ecosystem to help customers drive the future of mobility across research and development, manufacturing, supply chain and logistics, marketing, sales, and aftersales.

These reference architectures are designed to provide the structure and guidance needed for project managers, enterprise architects, and IT managers to deliver agile business outcomes.

Solutions utilizing the following automotive, mobility, and transportation industry reference architectures are available through qualified partners.

Transform to smart mobility

Discover how Microsoft is helping to accelerate the transformation of automotive, mobility, and transportation companies.

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Microsoft Connected Fleets reference architecture

The Microsoft Connected Fleets reference architecture enables faster, lower cost, higher value fleet management solutions—such as asset management and field service—by simplifying value extraction from connected vehicle data, streamlining integration with business systems, and facilitating specialized analytics.

This reference architecture utilizes a framework based on the Microsoft Common Data Model. Connected Fleets thus enables partners to build value-added solutions with unique capabilities, while also enabling the customer to take advantage of key Microsoft solutions such as Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and others. This eliminates the need for fractured solutions built from multiple sources, allows faster development and time to value, and can utilize the Microsoft Cloud to reduce costs. With flexible, Microsoft Azure Internet of Things (IoT) based data ingestion, the architecture supports existing connected vehicle solutions, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) feeds, or data exchanges as appropriate. This flexibility helps to reduce the overall cost of vehicle data acquisition.

With a focus on fleet customers, mobility service providers, and emerging or smaller OEMs, the Microsoft Connected Fleets reference architecture is enabled by the following partners where additional value-added capabilities are provided:

• Accenture
• Cognizant                                      
• Connected Cars              
• DSA
• HCL Technologies                         
• Humanising Autonomy           
• Luxoft                              
• Wejo

Microsoft Autonomous Vehicle Operations (AVOps) reference architecture

The Microsoft AVOps reference architecture provides a comprehensive set of cloud, edge, vehicle, and AI services that enable an integrated, end-to-end workflow for developing, verifying, and improving automated driving (AD) functions. This autonomous development workflow will be supported by partners utilizing the Microsoft Cloud. These capabilities are helping our customers accelerate time-to-market for new autonomy capabilities.

Our first-party and partner solutions create a strong, industry-vetted toolchain that spans the various stages of development, validation, runtime deployments, and feedback loops.

We provide industry-leading Microsoft Azure Cloud services to plug and play in the toolchain while our partners provide tightly integrated capabilities to enable the much-needed, global, secure, and hyper-scale cloud-based development platform for advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles (AVs).

Regardless of the level of autonomy, developing an autonomy stack and bringing a new car to market presents a series of workflow challenges:

• Fleets of test vehicles generate petabytes (PBs) of data daily. How do you extract it efficiently and inexpensively?
• Every single software and AI update requires validation through simulation with massive amounts of computing.
• PBs of data and petascale computing is expensive—delivering on time and under budget is challenging.
• How do you accurately validate and test performance?

The Microsoft AVOps reference architecture provides a templatized digital testbed that can be spun up on demand, shared across the entire value chain, and shorten time-to-market across any security operation center (SoC) companies to provide systems-level parity. This approach fundamentally helps our automotive customers and partners transform themselves into software and AI companies.

The Microsoft AVOps reference architecture is also focused on optimizing operational end-to-end ADAS and AV workflow coordination and feature development, verification, and validation by integrating and scaling:

• DataOps: From edge to cloud, the orchestration of PBs of data to support parallel workstreams.
• DevOps: Scaling the continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) pipeline.
• MLOps: Scaling machine learning pipelines and integrating with CI and CD pipelines.
• ValidationOps: The ability to accurately simulate software and AI updates across all edge cases.

The Microsoft AVOps reference architecture provides a collaborative, open framework built on common processes that helps automate, manage, and closely monitor the validation processes for software and hardware deployment. The following Microsoft partners provide additional value-added capabilities to this framework:

• Ansys   
• Applied Intuition            
• Cognata             
• Linker Networks             
• Akridata

Microsoft Digital Selling reference architecture

The Microsoft Digital Selling reference architecture enables the reinvention of the traditional customer journey by transforming real-life spaces into an immersive and interactive digital environment that reaches a wider range of customers.

The reference architecture enables unique, efficient, and immersive ways to engage with consumers by unlocking the power of the metaverse to improve communications, sales, and operations. Enhanced by partner capabilities, focus areas include digital marketing, eCommerce, high-fidelity 3D rendering, and industry-specific systems. By integrating disparate data from the customer, field service, and dealer management systems, improved visibility, collaboration, and data insights can drive more personalized, multi-channel customer experiences. Through the Digital Selling reference architecture, Microsoft Cloud, and partner capabilities, OEMs, dealers, and mobility service providers now have the flexibility to enhance in-person interactions along with enabling new digital customer engagement models.

This recent announcement by Fiat highlights the transformative impact of digital selling.

Microsoft is curating a group of expert partners that will drive innovation while providing excellence in omnichannel fulfillment, immersive and virtual user experiences, and end-to-end process coverage. The initial partners include:

• Sitecore                           
• Touchcast                        
• Annata

Microsoft at CES 2023

We’re excited to share our vision for innovation at CES 2023 and encourage you to visit our booth #6017 in the Las Vegas Convention Center West Hall.

Learn more

To learn more about how Microsoft is accelerating the future of mobility, visit our website highlighting the automotive, mobility, and transportation industry.

The post Microsoft automotive, mobility, and transportation reference architectures: Rapidly deploy solutions to drive your transformation appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

• Metaverse and the future of car buying.
• Mixed reality transforming service and customer experiences.
• Connected, autonomous, and software-defined mobility.

The Future of Automotive Industry Solutions

Your transformation to smart mobility services starts here.

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The theme for CES 2023 is “Human Security for All” and intends to highlight how innovations in sustainability, transportation and mobility, digital health, and the metaverse are addressing the world’s greatest challenges.

In a CES Insider Look video, Sanjay Ravi, General Manager, Automotive, Mobility, and Transportation Industry, highlights some of the key disruptions, and innovations creating what he termed a “once-in-a-century transformation.” The common industry goals of Connected, Autonomous, Shared mobility, and Electrification (CASE) have expanded into more impactful end goals of improving the societal, sustainability, and safety impact of mobility and improving the interactive and connected experiences that make our daily lives more productive and enjoyable.

Microsoft is working closely with our customers, partners, and the community and enabling them to drive the future of mobility. Data and AI are playing an increasing role in mobility. In a recent podcast interview, Sanjay talked with Alex Kendall, CEO of Wayve, who is advancing the safety and testing of autonomous vehicle technology using AI.

Transportation and aviation also featured at CES, are navigating their own roadmap to the future with a keen focus on sustainability. Contributing to more than one-third of all carbon emissions globally, we see nearly all players finding unique ways to reduce this impact, including an Alaska Airlines and Microsoft partnership to help the advancement of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) in key routes. Along with our customers and partners, we highlight our own emphasis on sustainability to be carbon negative by 2030, and by 2050 to remove our historical emissions since our founding in 1975. In addition, Microsoft is helping our customers fulfill their sustainability mission with Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability.

Innovation must lead from trust, data sovereignty, and cybersecurity and these are the core foundations at the center of empowerment for our customers and partners. Over the next five years, we are investing more than USD20 billion to continue the expansion of our cybersecurity capabilities, an imperative in our increasingly connected world.

Microsoft at CES 2023

The Microsoft CES theme of “Drive the future of mobility” embodies our vision to empower—not compete with—the industry to shape our mobility future. It is often out of duress that innovation sparks and grows. And there’s no doubt that the larger global ecosystem is under great pressure from both macro and micro influences. Organizations and individuals are having to do more when more may not always be readily available.

But as we’ve seen, the human resolve is strong and perhaps more vibrant than ever given our recent challenges. Part of the CES mission is to expose this resolve and technical prowess to the world as innovation will power us forward. Once again, we join the global community to showcase and celebrate the impact of innovation in automotive, mobility, and transportation at CES.

Subject to modifications, we are supporting these industry endeavors across five key areas:

1. Empowered Organization

To lead external transformation, organizations must first transform internally. The pandemic created unique opportunities to improve inter and intra-organizational productivity, ushering in an opportunity to drive efficiencies through a diverse, inclusive, and hybrid workforce. Here we will showcase the impact these trends have on accelerating transformation of productivity, frontline workers, citizen development, and most importantly, security.

Key showcase:

• Lynk & Co.: Improving enterprise efficiency isn’t the only area of focus companies have. That efficiency is now extended to the vehicle and leveraged through Microsoft Teams to bring on-the-go, safe, and efficient productivity integration while keeping eyes on the road.  

2. Resilient Operations

We have all been directly impacted by the vital links to a global supply chain and operations. Whether as a consumer, supplier, or someplace in between, improving operations is a key focus. Companies must find ways to create sustainable, agile, and collaborative supply chains that improve visibility and resilience. Many may not know that Microsoft operates a significant global manufacturing and supply chain operation. That experience along with our partner ecosystem has enabled our customers to drive rapid transformation in operations.

Key showcase:

• Creating resilient, sustainable supply chains with Microsoft Supply Chain Platform.
• Factory supply chain transformation with PwC and ZF and the creation of the ZF cloud in partnership with Microsoft as a platform for innovation across factories, products, and services.
• Powering the future of electric vehicles (EVs) with Rockwell and advanced battery technology leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT), mixed reality, and product lifestyle management (PLM) integration to power the electrification of mobility.

3. Accelerate Innovation

At the core of transformation is the need to innovate. Disruptions impacting the industry have created a sense of urgency creating rapid transformation opportunities that are truly moving the industry forward at a rapid pace in many areas.

Here we highlight:

• Autonomous simulation with Ansys and Applied Intuition enables advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles (AV) engineering and product teams to safely develop, test, and deploy autonomous vehicles at scale.
• AI, cognitive services, and the future of in-car interactions.
• Developing the future of software-defined vehicles with Eclipse Foundation.

4. Customer Experience

A benefit of transformation at its core is creating engaging experiences that build long-term value for the customer. After all, the customer is the ultimate beneficiary of technological advances in mobility. Whether it is integration with entertainment, productivity, sales, or service—opportunities are being created that offer unique, connected, and immersive experiences.

Examples include:

• Re-imagine the car-buying experience with the Fiat Metaverse Store supported by a Fiat 500e on display with an interactive, digital customer purchase experience powered by Touchcast, Annata, and Sitecore.
• Revolutionizing the end-to-end automotive retail ecosystem with Tekion.
• AI, cognitive services, and the future of in-car interactions with General Motors (with the all-electric Cadillac LYRIQ in-car demonstration at the General Motors OnStar booth).

5. Mobility Services

Traditional automotive, transportation, and logistics providers see themselves as part of a larger mobility ecosystem, not just creators of a product to move throughout it. Mobility is vibrant with blurred lines between old and new business models, and the creation of entirely new categories that address the future needs for the movement of people and goods.

A significant enabler of mobility services is the introduction of Microsoft Connect Fleets. A new reference architecture that creates an interconnected ecosystem of partners and makes use of common architecture, data models, and business applications from the Microsoft Cloud. Look for this announcement at CES and visit the booth to learn more.

Here we represent:

• Turning connected vehicle data intelligence into actionable insights and business system integration for efficient fleet management operations with Connected Fleets, a Microsoft reference architecture. Learn how Accenture utilized Connected Fleets with the campus Connector transportation system at Microsoft campus headquarters to improve mobility options and efficiency.
• Enhanced visibility of vehicle data and insights through Connected Cars and Wejo, offering insights from more than 13 million active vehicles and 18 trillion data points.
• EV charging management as demonstrated by HCLTech, enhanced by the Connected Fleets reference architecture.

Learn more

If you’ll be in Las Vegas for CES 2023, stop by and visit us in booth #6017 in the Las Vegas Convention Center West Hall for hands-on, immersive experiences and an opportunity to talk with mobility experts from many of our customers and partners.

To learn more about Microsoft in automotive, mobility, and transportation, visit the Future of Automotive Industry Solutions homepage.

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