As we gather for Microsoft Ignite 2024, we invite you to explore the latest advancements in AI and discover how these innovations can transform your business. With AI-powered agents, organizations can analyze vast amounts of data, adapt to changing environments, and execute complex processes, bringing efficiency and intelligence to your operations. Whether it’s automating customer service interactions, optimizing supply chain logistics, enhancing personalized shopping experiences, or driving sustainability efforts, the potential applications are vast and impactful.

Join us on this journey to unlock the potential of AI and pave the way for a more intelligent, connected, and sustainable world. Together, let’s embrace the future of innovation and drive exceptional value for our customers.

Innovating with new adapted AI models and agents

Adapted AI models are transforming industries by enabling new applications and driving business outcomes such as increased accuracy, enhanced efficiency, better decision-making, and improved customer experiences. These models are designed to meet specific industry needs and tasks, addressing unique challenges more accurately and effectively. By using customized AI for their needs, organizations can enhance their digital presence, improve customer engagement, and streamline operations. With a focus on trustworthy AI, which includes safety, security, and privacy, our AI solutions adhere to high standards of integrity and responsibility, offering a secure approach to advancing industry capabilities. These adapted AI models enable the creation of custom AI solutions within Azure AI Studio and can also be used to configure agents for specific industry scenarios in Microsoft Copilot Studio scenarios. 

We are collaborating with several partners across multiple industries on these adapted and fine-tuned AI models, which are available through the Azure AI model catalog, empowering organizations to build custom AI solutions to address their most pressing needs. Bayer, for instance, offers the E.L.Y. Crop Protection model to enhance sustainable crop protection in the agriculture sector. Cerence provides the CaLLM™ Edge model for in-vehicle digital assistant technology, while Rockwell Automation’s FT Optix Food & Beverage model supports asset troubleshooting in manufacturing. Saifr introduces models for regulatory compliance in financial institutions, and Siemens Digital Industries Software offers a copilot for NX X software leveraging an industry model to optimize the design process. Sight Machine’s Factory Namespace Manager standardizes factory data for AI readiness, and open-source models from Hugging Face are available for summarization and sentiment analysis of financial data. 

Microsoft also provides AI agents designed for various industry scenarios through Copilot Studio. These agents can be customized to meet the specific needs of different organizations. For example, retailers can use the Store Operations Agent to assist store associates, and manufacturers can utilize the Factory Operations Agent to enhance production efficiency. The new release of Agent Builder (preview) in Copilot Studio enables users to create agents directly in Business Chat and SharePoint by defining the agent’s purpose, configuring its knowledge base, and setting up starter prompts. With a user-friendly design requiring only low-code skills, Agent Builder allows integration of diverse data sources to customize agents with industry-specific knowledge and capabilities, improving their effectiveness in addressing key use cases for each industry. 

To learn more about the new adaptive AI models for Industry that are available in Azure AI model catalogue and directly through our partners, visit Azure AI model catalog.

Financial services

Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services are leading the generative AI revolution in financial services, empowering industry professionals to securely and easily incorporate rich industry data and specialty data sets into their everyday activities while providing enhanced security and compliance at the same time. Microsoft has dedicated itself to generating strong partner momentum across the financial services space, including through creating and offering the tools Microsoft partners need to drive innovation, mutual growth, and success both now and as the capabilities of generative AI continue to evolve. LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group), among others, has already built pioneering new solutions aligned to this initiative.

Built in collaboration with LSEG, Financial Meeting Prep (see the recent announcement using the preview name, Meeting Prep for Financial Services) aims to streamline client meeting preparation for investment banking professionals. Combining LSEG Workspace, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft 365 Copilot, the solution will consolidate important data, introduce organization-specific insights, easily refresh content as new data becomes available, and enhance relationship manager productivity and decision-making. General availability of Financial Meeting Prep is expected by the end of 2024.

Financial Insights Agent in Copilot Studio

Gathering insights from online sources and proprietary financial documents is crucial for making investment decisions, strategizing, and conducting assessments. However, finding the right data can be time-consuming for financial services professionals, and reviewing the vast amounts of relevant information is nearly impossible.

With the Financial Insights Agent, now available in Copilot Studio, financial services professionals can quickly and easily gather information from financial news and regulatory reporting websites. And because this agent comes ready-made and is easily customized agent, you don’t need advanced development skills to get started.

The Financial Insights Agent gives high-quality results and works best when integrated with the financial document analysis skill for agents (preview), available in Azure Marketplace, which makes it possible for users to gain info and insights from financial documents provided by their organization, such as analyst reports and other complex financial documents that are stored in-house—even when the data is found in complex financial tables, graphs, or charts. This skill not only works with the Financial Insights Agent, but it can also be integrated into custom agents. For example, Reflexivity has been integral in helping Microsoft understand challenges in the industry. Within their own platform, they use this skill for certain document flows, helping financial services professionals derive insights from both structured and unstructured data more efficiently so they can make informed decisions faster.

Financial Services landing zones

Microsoft has recently developed and is now ready to introduce a new Financial Services landing zone. Based on the Azure landing zone—a secure, scalable cloud foundation tailored for compliance needs—the Financial Services landing zone is an infrastructure-as-code solution that provides the baseline governance, resilience, security, automation, and prescriptive guidance that Microsoft industry partners and other financial services organizations need in order to comply with the industry’s strict, mission-critical regulations. As the Financial Services landing zone also provides financial services organizations of all kinds a robust and compliant cloud environment, the solution represents a powerful means to accelerate digital transformation initiatives.

Manufacturing

The manufacturing industry is experiencing a dynamic transformation, with opportunities for growth and innovation despite challenges like economic uncertainty and supply chain disruptions. Microsoft and its partners are at the forefront of this evolution, empowering manufacturers with cutting-edge solutions that help enable intelligent factories, resilient supply chains, and enhanced customer experiences.

Manufacturing data solutions in Microsoft Fabric

During Hannover Messe 2024, we announced the preview of manufacturing data solutions in Microsoft Fabric. This solution integrates operational technology (OT) data, with information technology (IT) data, creating a comprehensive data foundation structured according to the ISA-95 information model.¹ This standardized approach enables manufacturers to break down data silos, enabling cross-domain insights, streamlined processes, and data-driven decision-making. Partner solutions from Sight Machine, Litmus, and Avanade further enhance these capabilities.

Sight Machine Factory Copilot on Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing transforms your manufacturing execution systems (MES) data into the ISA-95 standard for consumption in manufacturing data solutions in Fabric, which can be surfaced through factory agent experiences to help address operational issues on the factory floor.

Litmus Edge Manager enables a robust hybrid edge-to-cloud infrastructure, streamlining real-time machine dashboards and facilitating advanced machine learning. Litmus and the manufacturing data solutions in Fabric unlocks unprecedented efficiency and innovation, seamlessly bridging the gap between edge and cloud.

Learn how to get started with manufacturing data solutions in Microsoft Fabric and Factory Operations Agent.

Factory Operations Agent in Microsoft Azure AI

We’re excited to announce the public preview of the Factory Operations Agent in Azure AI, which empowers manufacturers to develop customized, AI-powered agents for frontline workers. These intelligent assistants leverage natural language processing and retrieval-augmented generation, making complex data analytics accessible for scenarios like root cause analysis, production loss reduction, continuous improvement, and asset maintenance. With the Factory Operations Agent, factory teams can intuitively interact with data, receive timely insights, and resolve issues more efficiently—ultimately enhancing productivity and empowering the workforce to drive operational excellence.

Avanade Manufacturing Copilot, powered by manufacturing data solutions in Fabric, helps customers to overcome OT-IT data accessibility and utilization challenges and leverage AI at-scale to make higher-quality products faster with less waste.

Learn how to get started with Factory Operations Agent in Azure AI (preview).

Factory Safety Agent in Microsoft Copilot Studio

The new Factory Safety Agent in Copilot Studio (preview) is focused on workplace safety. Factory Safety Agent provides organizations with a low code option to quickly develop a customized agent, grounded in occupational health and safety data. Whether using publicly available standards like Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) or specific protocols of the organization, this agent can provide critical safety information, insights to factory workers, and streamline critical activities such as safety inspections or incident reporting to reduce risks and ultimately accidents.

Retail

As the retail industry adapts to new customer expectations and competitive pressures, Microsoft and its partners are providing tools for retailers that offer real-time insights, enhance customer engagement, and drive digital innovation.

Retail Data Solutions in Microsoft Fabric

Retail Data Solutions in Microsoft Fabric help retailers unify and standardize their data. This platform enables customers to integrate data from different systems and offers ready-to-use agents to speed up AI transformations. Currently in public preview, it includes four customizable features for retail:

• Retail Industry Data Model: Plan and design data solutions for governance, reporting, business intelligence, and analytics.
• Frequently Bought Together: Use insights to enhance upselling, shelf optimization, and store efficiency.
• Sitecore OrderCloud Connector: Standardize commerce data from Sitecore OrderCloud to gain actionable insights.
• Personalized Shopping Agent: Improve shopping experiences with tailored customer conversations.

Personalized Shopping Agent

The Personalized Shopping Agent can engage in natural language conversations to understand and respond to shoppers’ needs. It provides tailored recommendations based on the shopper’s specific requirements and preferences. Additionally, it can handle specific requests, such as finding matching items or suggesting outfits for specific occasions. The agent leverages Retail Data Solutions, using aggregated product catalogs, and AI orchestration tools to provide accurate and contextually relevant answers.   

Store Operations Agent

The Store Operations Agent revolutionizes how store associates handle daily tasks with its headless architecture that integrates into applications or websites. It offers ready-to-deploy plugins for:

• Product search or inventory search: Real-time access to product details and stock.
• Order details: Tracks order information down to the line level.
• Incident management: Resolves incidents using Copilot and ServiceNow.
• Task management: Integrates directly with tasking apps.
• Omni channel access: Provides natural language access to current prices, promotions, and information.

The agent integrates seamlessly with Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Commerce, and ServiceNow. These integrations can extend to other enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and applications with pre-built connectors and APIs. These features are continually updated, adding more plugins to help partners scale operations.

Partners can also utilize the Store Operations Agent alongside their own solutions to accelerate customer adoption. Accenture Avanade has launched a Clienteling copilot, which has Store Operations Agent embedded and assists store associates in managing daily tasks efficiently. It also offers a natural language query interface for store policies and procedures, enabling informed decision-making for store associates and managers.

Public sector

Microsoft is leading the way in helping government and regulated organizations address their compliance, security, and data sovereignty requirements while adopting modern digital technologies. With initiatives like Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty and generative AI, Microsoft offers comprehensive solutions tailored to diverse regulatory landscapes, enabling organizations to streamline their compliance processes and enhance their digital capabilities.

Citizen Services agent

Available in Copilot Studio, Citizen Services agent allows public sector organizations to create AI-powered agents using their public websites and information. The agent helps citizens navigate government services and information through a Q&A experience, providing answers from configured knowledge bases, such as responses about city plans, road closures, or service applications, offering citizens access to up-to-date information.

Get started with the Citizen Services agent in Copilot Studio.

Regulated Environment Management

Regulated Environment Management (REM) in Azure, currently in private preview, supports cloud adoption as part of Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty. REM simplifies the configuration, deployment and management of regulated environments through landing zones, policy and drift analysis. Starting November 2024, REM will shift to a subscription-level service, offering benefits like data isolation, regional boundaries, and group management of landing zone configurations. Transparency logs and the Landing Zone Account (LZA) simplify managing configurations and provide data residency. REM also includes a REST API for easier integration.

Request access in the REM private preview.  

Sustainability

With growing demands for disclosure requirements under regulatory directives like the European Union Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the pursuit of impactful initiatives such as decarbonization, and the increasing need for transparency in corporate sustainability claims, businesses are under pressure to demonstrate genuine commitment to sustainability. To address these challenges, Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability is introducing Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric and enhanced reporting in Microsoft Sustainability Manager.

Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric

Now generally available, Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric enables customers to unify environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data with organizational data, fostering innovation, process changes, and simplified reporting. With Microsoft Fabric, businesses can create a standardized sustainability data lake for their ESG needs. Features include an extensible ESG data schema, pre-built notebooks for data transformations, data pipelines for various business systems (including Microsoft Sustainability Manager), and built-in dashboards for analyzing ESG topics.

OneLake in Fabric allows businesses to enhance sustainability by building analytical insights with AI and machine learning models and using Copilot agents for autonomous workflows. Learn more about Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric.

Partners like UST Global use Sustainability data solutions in Fabric to develop flexible ESG systems of record that align with sustainability goals. Leveraging Microsoft Fabric, they craft customizable solutions for unique ESG challenges and adapt as requirements evolve.

Sustainability data solutions in Fabric offers tools to manage ESG data complexities, improve data integration and accuracy, provide real-time insights, and support compliance. This platform helps meet regulatory and stakeholder expectations and drives effective sustainability efforts across organizations.

External reporting in Microsoft Sustainability Manager

Also in general availability, the new external reporting capabilities in Microsoft Sustainability Manager (formerly Project ESG Reporting) simplifies external reporting across various standards with AI-powered insights and recommendations, making it easier for organizations to prepare and manage disclosure reports. Users can seamlessly connect, organize, review, and report data according to global standards.

Whether used as a standalone solution through the Power Platform gallery or integrated within Microsoft Sustainability Manager, it supports custom frameworks, iXBRL compatibility through partners, and offers a workflow user interface (UI) for editing and approvals. These new capabilities reduce the complexities of compliance, helping businesses stay on top of their sustainability reporting.

Using Copilot Studio with Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability

Copilot Studio is a key part of the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability toolkit, helping users create customized agents to meet sustainability and compliance goals. As compliance standards change, Copilot Studio uses large language models (LLM) to help organizations adapt quickly. It offers pre-built connectors for easy data integration, reducing the time and effort needed to manage diverse data sources and focus on actionable insights. Current features include the Sustainability Insights Agent for interacting with sustainability reports, with upcoming agents for estimating European Union Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) costs and setting goals. This tool, combined with our network of partners, helps organizations achieve their ESG goals by unifying data intelligence and streamlining sustainability management.

Shaping the future with AI

Join us on this journey to unlock the potential of AI and pave the way for a more intelligent, connected, and sustainable world. Together, let’s embrace the future of innovation and drive exceptional value for our customers. By leveraging the latest advancements in AI, we can transform industries, enhance productivity, and create meaningful experiences for everyone. Whether it’s through automating routine tasks, optimizing operations, or providing personalized services, the possibilities are endless. Let’s work together to harness the power of AI and make a lasting impact on our businesses and communities. 

Watch the Ignite 2024 sessions

Watch Accelerating industry partner growth in the age of AI with Kathleen Mitford and Satish Thomas and Delivering adapted AI models for industries with partners.

Financial Services

• Accelerate AI Innovation with Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services 
• Empowering the financial services partner ecosystem with Generative AI

Manufacturing

• Democratize data-driven decision making across factory operations with AI

Retail

• Elevate the retail experience with the Personalized Shopping Agent 
• Empower the retail workforce with the Store Operations Agent 

Public Sector

• Accelerate Cloud Adoption with Software-Defined Sovereignty 
• Collaborating with partners for digital sovereignty in the cloud 
• Deploying AI with Sovereign controls

Sustainability

• Accelerating ESG progress with sustainability data solutions in Fabric 
• Sustainability reduction and calculation compliance simplified with Copilot Studio and Microsoft Sustainability Manager 
• Building solution practices for Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability 
• Implementation best practices for Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability 

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¹ https://www.isa.org/standards-and-publications/isa-standards/isa-95-standard

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Powering healthcare AI with unified and protected data

We are excited to announce the general availability of healthcare data solutions in Microsoft Fabric, along with the public preview of healthcare application templates for Microsoft Purview. These advancements represent a leap forward for data-centric healthcare, enabling organizations to streamline, secure, and analyze diverse biomedical data—the foundation to build powerful and responsible healthcare AI.

In the latest public preview release, Microsoft Fabric’s healthcare data solutions now integrate DAX Copilot data, offering a comprehensive platform for ingesting, storing, and analyzing a wide range of healthcare data. This includes clinical, imaging, claims, conversational, and social determinants of health (SDOH) data, all handled within a multi-modal biomedical lakehouse. The platform adheres to healthcare standards, such as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) and Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM), and provides tools for data transformation, enrichment, discovery, and visualization.

With the new addition of DAX, the Dragon Ambient Experience, a draft medical note is generated at the point of care, combining healthcare and conversational data to generate unique insights. The platform has controls in place to support an organization’s compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), offering role-based access control and robust data governance. An AI-powered data discovery and grouping experience enables customers to discover their data and supports healthcare providers build patient cohorts for AI development, enhancing the capabilities of data discovery and building cohorts in this public preview.

In tandem, the healthcare application templates for Microsoft Purview are designed to help healthcare organizations govern their data with confidence. These templates allow healthcare organizations to discover and govern sensitive data in compliance with industry standards.

AI advances in healthcare

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare offers both healthcare data solutions and healthcare AI models well suited for managing multimodal healthcare data.

We are excited to unveil the public preview of Microsoft healthcare AI models in Azure AI Studio and GitHub, a collection of cutting-edge multimodal generative AI models for healthcare and life sciences available in the Azure AI model catalog. This platform empowers developers and researchers to create sophisticated multimodal health and life sciences solutions more efficiently, using fewer data and compute resources, thus reducing development time and costs.

We have collaborated with our partner ecosystem to bring forth a suite of advanced AI models that can work with different types of medical data. These models are engineered to operate both in conjunction with advanced general reasoning models like GPT-4o and Microsoft’s Phi-3 family, paving the way for potent multimodal solutions that meet the needs of the healthcare and life sciences community.

Microsoft Fabric’s healthcare data solutions are the multimodal data estate that powers our AI, integrating diverse data types into a unified environment. This integration facilitates enhanced decision-making and propels patient outcomes by providing comprehensive insights, particularly by combining specialized multimodal AI models with Fabric’s robust data integration tools.

We are also pleased to announce the public preview of healthcare agent service integrated in Microsoft Copilot Studio. This innovative platform is tailored for the rapid, secure, and compliant development of healthcare copilots, incorporating generative AI based on a healthcare-specialized stack.

With healthcare agent service, our customers can create their own copilots, featuring pre-built healthcare specific safeguards and intelligence. Healthcare agent service is specifically designed for the healthcare sector, incorporating a range of responsible AI safeguards, including chat, clinical, and compliance measures ensuring that the development of healthcare copilot agents adheres to the highest standards of safety and regulatory compliance.

This announcement underscores our commitment to empower health and life science organizations with advanced tools that are not only innovative but also responsible and compliant with industry standards.

Furthermore, the Azure Health Data Services de-identification service is set to reach general availability in November. The cloud API service uses natural language processing techniques to find, redact, or surrogate protected health information (PHI) in unstructured text, including clinical notes, doctor/patient text messages, clinical trial data, discharge summaries, and more. By leveraging the Azure Health Data Services de-identification service, healthcare organizations can confidently utilize or share their data for research, analytics, and AI-powered insights without compromising data privacy.

The future of AI in healthcare

As we stand on the brink of a new era in healthcare, the integration of AI and data solutions is not just a possibility but a necessity. The advancements we’ve discussed, from Microsoft’s responsible AI initiatives to the groundbreaking capabilities of Microsoft Fabric and healthcare AI models, are transforming the way we approach patient care, data management, and overall healthcare delivery. These innovations are not only enhancing patient outcomes but also bringing joy back to the practice of medicine by alleviating the burdens on healthcare providers. The time to lead the charge in revolutionizing healthcare is now.

We invite you to join us on this journey. Explore the possibilities with Microsoft’s AI and data solutions and see how they can empower your organization to achieve new heights in patient care and operational efficiency.

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare is helping your organization shape a healthier future with data and AI

We are excited to strengthen our data and AI investments through the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. Our healthcare solutions are built on a foundation of trust and Microsoft’s responsible AI principles. Through these innovations, we are making it easier for our partners and customers to create connected experiences at every point of care, empower their healthcare workforce, and unlock the value from their data using data standards that are important to the healthcare industry.

• Explore more about Azure Health Data Services.
• Learn more about healthcare data solutions in Microsoft Fabric.
• Later this month, visit the Healthcare and Life Sciences Blog to explore the innovative de-identification service that’s transforming how we protect patient privacy.

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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.

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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.

At Microsoft, our mission has always been one of empowerment. AI furthers this mission. When harnessed together with modern compute and infrastructure, Microsoft AI offers unprecedented access to information that can help solve complex manufacturing problems faster. To showcase this innovation, we recently attended the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) 2024 in Chicago, Illinois, and demonstrated how Microsoft and its partners are accelerating industrial transformation outcomes with AI. Read on to experience IMTS for yourself, with our highlights and the 3 areas we believe the Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing and AI are driving real industry impact.

• Design better products with AI-powered insights
• Build products smarter with AI-optimized manufacturing
• Modernize frontline operations with AI-assisted workers

Design better products with AI-powered insights

Design is the cornerstone of manufacturing, shaping not only product functionality, aesthetics, and performance but influencing production efficiency, material use, and long-term sustainability. This critical stage presents significant opportunities to optimize manufacturing processes and reduce costs that are often locked in early. With generative design and AI-enabled solutions like predictive modeling and digital twins, we can analyze real-time performance data and simulate alternatives rapidly to minimize material waste, reduce errors, and improve time-to-market.

Moreover, for many modern connected products, software is an increasingly significant component—driving functionality, value, and the transformation of traditional dynamics. Generative AI streamlines software development by accelerating code generation with tools like Github Copilot, allowing engineers to iterate faster, improve overall quality, and design more sustainably. The combined impact is a more agile, efficient development process that reduces time-to-market, enhances product performance, and fosters sustainable innovation. As software continues to integrate deeper into connected products, generative AI empowers engineers to push the boundaries of what’s possible within design and manufacturing.

Harnessing data for streamlined product development with PTC

In the Microsoft booth, our partner PTC demonstrated the impact AI can have on product lifecycle with a well-managed digital thread. Their demo showed how Vestas, a wind turbine manufacturer, leverages PTC’s design, Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions to develop products. PTC’s new digital thread solution uses Azure and Microsoft AI to bring these tools together to enable real-time data synchronicity, traceability, and version control across Vestas’ product lifecycle. This single source of truth simplified the development process and enabled Vestas to continue reusing valuable data throughout the product’s lifecycle.

Build products smarter with AI-optimized manufacturing

Manufacturing success today requires a seamless integration of materials, technology, and resources. With these complex environments, AI is changing how we think about industrial operations. The merging of physical assets with AI, IoT, and automation solutions is enabling manufacturers to optimize production, reduce downtime, and improve real-time decision making for greater competitiveness.

Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing centralizes data in the cloud, unifying its structure. Once organized, AI solutions can extract data’s hidden value analyzing it for insights, including predictive maintenance by identifying shop floor patterns and anomalies that may indicate potential equipment failures. AI-enabled factories allow manufacturers to better manage supply chains, anticipate these production shifts, and optimize their resource allocation.

For mission-critical operations, Azure IoT Operations ensures your data is processed on-premises for immediate action, before being sent to the cloud for further analysis. Azure IoT Operations takes an adaptive cloud approach, supported by Azure Arc, which enables manufacturers to unify data across their hybrid, multi-cloud, and edge environments. An adaptive cloud approach simplifies infrastructure management and security while maximizing resource utilization and ensuring AI-powered solutions scale across production lines and multiple sites. By adopting this approach, manufacturers can streamline operations, improve scalability, and establish a standardized architecture, ensuring resiliency and continuous improvement across the enterprise.

Enabling OT intelligence for autonomous operations with Rockwell

AI has already demonstrated its ability to digest information and offer accurate recommendations. How does this translate to manufacturing factories? Rockwell demonstrated how IoT solutions can enlighten older OT assets and processes. Rockwell enables organizations to transform their factory equipment into IoT-enabled assets. This live operational data is then centralized in the cloud through Azure IoT Operations, where predictive AI can automatically identify and address maintenance needs, enhance workflows, and perform tasks that once needed onsite staff.

Modernize frontline operations with AI-assisted workers

Frontline workers and service teams are the backbone of manufacturing operations. Their expertise, adaptability, and problem-solving skills are critical for maintaining production efficiency—ensuring quality control and driving continuous improvement in environments where the digital world meets the physical world. When empowered by AI, these workers become decision-makers freed from repetitive tasks. AI allows frontline workers from the factory floor to the field to focus on higher-value activities, improves their productivity, and enables them to adapt to the evolving demands of modern manufacturing.

Generative AI enables service teams to seamlessly create work orders from unstructured data like emails, efficiently schedule resources, and provide timely support—particularly during high-demand periods. For frontline workers, AI offers fast and intuitive access to essential information, eliminating the need to manually sift through long standard operating procedures, equipment manuals or contact expert support. By delivering the right information at the right moment with natural language prompting, generative AI not only improves first-time fix rates but also accelerates worker upskilling, preparing them for more complex responsibilities and driving long-term productivity gains.

Delivering exceptional customer service with Dynamics 365 Field Service

At IMTS 2024 we showcased how Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service is enabling workers to solve problems more efficiently and deliver exceptional customer experiences. Delivering exceptional service is key for building customer preference and loyalty. Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service can help service managers and technicians efficiently create workorders, schedule workers and find the information they need to resolve issues right the first time while keeping customers updated at every step of the process. With the added capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist capabilities in Microsoft Teams, frontline workers can call for expert help and utilize augmented reality features such as spatial annotations reducing asset downtimes and efficient service experience for customers.

Continuing AI conversations beyond IMTS 2024

Manufacturing is undergoing a profound transformation. It is clear, AI will be at the heart of this change. From revolutionizing product design with AI-driven insights and optimizing manufacturing processes with predictive analytics to empowering frontline workers with easy access to information, AI is fundamentally reshaping how industries operate. IMTS 2024 underscored our vision for manufacturing and the impact AI will have on industrial operations. From PTC to Rockwell to Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service, AI is driving innovation and enabling manufacturers to overcome operational bottlenecks.

As AI adoption accelerates, organizations will face challenges such as inadequate data, expertise gaps, and governance. Microsoft is committed to helping manufacturers overcome these obstacles and realize the full potential of AI. By combining modern cloud infrastructure and compute with powerful AI tools, Microsoft can enable every organization to scale their AI initiatives across multiple sites and functions, moving them beyond “pilot purgatory” to achieve long-term, sustainable transformation.

Explore Microsoft solutions

Now is the time. Along with its partners, Microsoft can help every manufacturer unlock the value in their data, streamline operations, and drive greater value chain efficiency. Whether you’re just beginning your journey or looking to scale, Microsoft can support you at every stage.

Industrial transformation

Accelerate how your organization designs, builds, and operates with AI

Discover solutions

• Learn how Microsoft can help you overcome barriers to AI adoption and drive real impact in your manufacturing value chain by reading this report we created in collaboration with MIT Technology Review Insights.
• Explore how Microsoft is helping other organizations accelerate their transformation on our industrial transformation webpage.

The post 3 practical ways industrial AI is reshaping manufacturing appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Here are examples of what our customers are saying about the value they see: 

Generative AI is proving to be the key to unlocking unprecedented levels of personalization, performance, and customer engagement, as well as the opportunity to change the experience of being on the operator’s network. Microsoft’s strategy to support generative AI adoption in telecommunications centers on four pillars:

1. Elevating customer experience
2. Optimizing business and operations support systems
3. Modernizing the network
4. Unlocking new revenue streams

By focusing on these areas, we aim to enhance customer satisfaction through AI-powered support, streamline business operations with advanced automation, upgrade network infrastructure for better performance and security, and create new revenue opportunities through innovative AI-powered solutions. This comprehensive approach ensures that telecommunications providers deliver exceptional service while driving growth and efficiency.  

Elevating customer experiences 

Differentiation in the telecom industry is a growing challenge, and customer experience is emerging as a key competitive advantage. By leveraging AI-infused customer care, telecommunications companies are enhancing customer experiences through the use of branded service assistants. These AI-powered assistants provide personalized customer support and unique interactions—helping telecoms differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Vodafone Group is investing in both employee and customer experiences. Recently, they announced a plan to provide Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 to their workforce. This generative AI tool will be rolled out to 68,000 employees across the organization to further improve productivity, innovation, and digital efficiency. This follows a successful pilot where Copilot for Microsoft 365 saved over three hours per person, per week—freeing employees to work on more creative, innovative, and valuable tasks, improving work-life balance and enhancing services and supporting Vodafone’s 350 million customers worldwide.   

Vodafone continues to personalize services and improve customer satisfaction by leveraging Microsoft Azure AI Studio, Azure OpenAI Service, and Microsoft Copilot along with Azure AI Search to enhance its customer experience with their virtual assistant, “TOBi,” and their customer agent solution, “SuperAgent.”   

“We aim to provide fast, personalized customer experiences that inspire confidence, but to continue to do that in the face of rising customer expectations, we needed to find a way to better manage complex customer inquiries efficiently and ensure timely and personalized responses.”

Ahmed Elsayed, Chief Information Officer United Kingdom and Europe Digital Engineering Director at Vodafone Group

Today, TOBi engages in more than 45 million conversations a month with customers and is expected to grow to half a billion over the next few years while reducing average hold time by more than one minute.  

Recently, PLDT selected Amdocs’ market-leading Intelligent Networking Suite to transform their network operations. The solution operates on the public cloud, featuring unified network inventory, service and network orchestration, and business process automation capabilities. This agreement also includes the customer service solution for case management, which is part of the Microsoft and Amdocs Customer Engagement Platform (CEP). CEP is a comprehensive, AI-powered solution designed for telecommunications service providers. It offers a unified platform for marketing, sales, commerce, and customer service—enabling telecoms to deliver seamless, digital-first experiences to both consumer and enterprise customers.

Optimizing business and operations support systems 

Telecoms are benefiting from modernizing their Business Support Systems (BSS) and real-time Operations Support Systems (OSS) with data solutions and Copilot for Microsoft 365, an AI-powered productivity tool that integrates with Microsoft 365 apps. At Telkomsel, their chat–based virtual assistant Veronika contributed to a 15% reduction in customer escalations resulting in a net promotor score (NPS) that is 27% above the industry average.

Generative AI assistants for employees empower customer care agents to manage multiple inquiries efficiently, broadening their expertise and resulting in more personalized services leading to improved customer satisfaction and retention.  

Orange France is using generative AI to enhance customer service, marketing, internal and external communications, and network operations, with dedicated support from Microsoft. Use cases include fully integrated tools for rewriting FAQs, generating product sheets, and assisting developers with writing code. Laetitia Orsini Sharps, Consumer Department Director at Orange France, sees this technology as “a promising vector for improving customer service and making employees’ work easier,” allowing service teams to reduce the time it takes an agent to investigate and analyze the root cause of complex cases from 20 minutes to less than 3 minutes.

Modernizing the network 

Telecoms can improve security, network efficiency, scalability, and reliability by using a carrier-grade, AI-infused, and secure hybrid cloud. This modernization effort will reduce costs and drive revenue growth, positioning telecoms as leaders in the digital age.  

Telecoms are protecting their networks from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. Nokia’s latest innovation, the integration of a generative AI assistant with its NetGuard Cybersecurity Dome, demonstrates this proactive approach to security. Leveraging Azure OpenAI Service, this assistant enhances the efficiency of threat detection and resolution. Nokia expects the generative AI assistant to reduce the time it takes to identify and resolve a threat by up to 50 percent, depending on the nature of a cyberattack. As telecoms continue to fortify their defenses, such advancements are crucial in ensuring the security and reliability of critical operations. 

Real-time analytics capabilities allow telecoms to monitor network performance, detect anomalies, and optimize resource allocation to make data-driven decisions. Microsoft Fabric provides telecoms with real-time data, bringing order to a diverse and complicated data estate, enabling them to scale AI efforts. Fabric integrates data from various sources, including other clouds or on-premises sources, extending to where their data resides, providing a holistic view of telecom operations. The platform’s data visualization tools enable telecom companies to present complex data in an understandable format, facilitating better communication and collaboration across the organization.  

Unlocking new revenue streams 

Using Azure OpenAI Service to scale personalized customer experiences can result in an annual increase in average revenue per customer of 3% to 7% and a reduction in annual churn of 20% to 30%.² Telecom investments in AI and network modernization are unlocking new revenue streams with a platform for rapid development, deployment, and monetization of new services.  

As digital ecosystems expand, telecoms are offering advanced services where applications interact with their networks through APIs, turning their networks into programmable platforms that adapt to changing demands. Azure Programmable Connectivity (APC) offers a seamless Azure experience, providing a unified, standard interface across multiple operator networks globally while abstracting the complexities inherent to network APIs, ensuring code consistency and reliability, as networks continue to evolve. Developers can focus on building applications without worrying about underlying network changes.  

Telecoms can enhance their B2B strategy by leveraging Microsoft’s advanced technologies and strategic partnerships. Yobi Data works with telecoms to better understand customer behavior without compromising privacy.

“Accessing and managing the data necessary for effective AI can be prohibitively expensive—not to mention risky, and inefficient. Yobi Data finds the signal in the noise, empowering telecoms with access to advanced analytics and AI-derived insights into consumer behavior, network performance, and operational efficiency, all based on our own Private-by-Design data set. With these tools, telecoms can reduce churn, increase revenue, and improve customer experience—all without the time, expense, or burdens of new data acquisition.”

Max Snow, Chief Executive Officer, Yobi

The integration of real-time voice AI services using Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Translator, and other services allows telecoms to differentiate themselves in the market.

“By partnering with Microsoft, Norwood Systems is pushing the boundaries of innovation in telecommunications. Leveraging Azure AI in our cutting-edge solutions like our CogVoice™ and Visual Voicemail platforms, we’re empowering telecoms operators to unlock new revenue streams, elevate customer engagement, and deliver next-generation experiences. Together, we’re reshaping the future of communication services.”

Paul Ostergaard, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Norwood Systems 

As telecoms continue to integrate AI into their strategies, the opportunities for growth and innovation are boundless. Recently Korea Telecom (KT) announced a multibillion dollar partnership with Microsoft to accelerate AI transformation for 650,000 companies and 17 million customers in Korea. “The partnership with Microsoft presents a pivotal opportunity, not only for technological collaboration but also for expanding Korea’s AI foundation and driving transformative innovation across industries and daily life,” said KT CEO Young-Shub Kim.

Microsoft’s commitment to supporting this transformation through advanced AI technologies and strategic partnerships will empower telecoms to stay ahead of evolving market and customer demands. 

Explore further how AI is reshaping the telecom industry

Microsoft for telecommunications

Accelerate telco transformation in the era of AI

Start your journey

• Learn more about Azure OpenAI Service capabilities.
• Read the white paper “Scaling telecommunications AI at speed.”
• Connect with us at Mobile World Congress in Las Vegas, Nevada from October 8 to 10, 2024, where Microsoft is a Platinum Sponsor for the Telco AI Summit. We look forward to welcoming you to our speaking sessions or in our executive meeting rooms in the West Hall, Level 2.

¹ IDC’s “Telecommunications Service Provider DX Plans and Strategies Survey Highlights Study”, IDC #US52480824, August 2024. 

² New Technology: The Projected Total Economic Impact™ Of Azure OpenAI Service In Reinventing Customer And Constituent Engagement, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, July 2024. 

The post Transforming telecoms with AI appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Keeping the financial sector resilient in a fast-changing world is a global challenge, shared by leading firms, government regulators, and technology providers like Microsoft. In fact, it is a tenet of our work in Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, and is closely aligned with Microsoft’s commitment to making security our top priority in our products and services. 

Since 2020, officials in the European Union (EU) have been working on a new set of sweeping regulations to address the industry’s increasing reliance on technology, and to mitigate the associated risks. DORA—the Digital Operational Resilience Act—took effect on January 16, 2023, and becomes effective on January 17, 2025, impacting virtually every financial firm operating in the EU and the many critical third-party service providers who support them. Microsoft has been actively engaged in working with regulators and financial entities concerning the development of DORA and is now focused on helping customers enable smooth and comprehensive compliance under it. 

What is DORA? 

DORA is a major new EU regulation designed to strengthen the operational resilience of financial services by ensuring that firms maintain strong risk management practices and can withstand and adapt to a wide range of threats and disruptions. The regulation is part of a broader EU strategy to improve the stability and security of the industry and to harmonize requirements across member states. DORA applies to financial services entities operating in the EU, as well as the technology companies who provide third-party services to them that are critical for such entities. 

Under DORA, financial services entities will be required to implement robust cybersecurity incident response plans and promptly report breaches and other cyber incidents and disruptions to authorities. Firms will need to build business continuity plans that let them keep operating in the event of a major disruption, including having exit plans for more serious scenarios. And they will be subject to increased scrutiny by financial supervisory authorities, who will monitor and assess their operational resilience, and take action to ensure compliance if need be. 

DORA also imposes requirements for third-party Information and Communication Technology (ICT) service providers, with a primary (though not exclusive) focus on ICT companies who provide cloud computing products and services that help support key functions. The regulation also creates a new designation of “critical” providers (which likely would include Microsoft) who will be subject to a new oversight framework by the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs). 

DORA’s impact on financial services customers 

For financial services, DORA will require firms to adhere to many new or enhanced requirements. Among them: 

• Risk management of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) service providers Financial firms will need to establish a comprehensive management framework for ICT risks, integrated into their overall risk management systems. The framework covers core technology and security considerations including identification, protection, detection, response, and recovery. It also encompasses strategies, policies, procedures, and tools to ensure the security and resilience of systems, information assets, and data.
• Incident management and reporting
  Firms will be required to put processes in place to detect, manage, and report major ICT-related incidents to authorities on tight timeframes. Incidents such as cybersecurity breaches, service disruptions, and data loss will be evaluated on criteria such as number of clients affected, duration, and economic impact.
• Operational resilience testing
  DORA will require that digital operational tests, such as threat-led penetration testing (TLPT) and vulnerability assessments, be conducted on critical ICT systems and applications. These tests aim to ensure timely recovery and business continuity in the event of disruptions.
• Contractual commitments
  DORA mandates specific contractual requirements between ICT service providers and financial services entities. These include requirements regarding audit, business continuity, exit planning, and the use of key subcontractors. Moreover, before entering into contracts with ICT providers, firms must conduct pre-contractual risk assessments, including such considerations as evaluating the provider’s security measures, compliance status, and financial stability.  

How Microsoft is helping customers to comply with DORA  

As a major ICT service provider, Microsoft has established robust internal governance processes to prepare for and comply with all applicable provisions as a critical third-party technology vendor, and we will equally endeavor to support regulated financial institutions in meeting their requirements under DORA. This includes aligning contractual provisions with the mandates of DORA and providing built-in ICT risk management capabilities across a broad range of Microsoft cloud and enterprise product offerings. 

Here are three important ways that we are helping customers meet the challenges of DORA:

1. To help customers successfully meet their contractual commitments under DORA, we are now working closely to update contract terms as required and applicable by the new regulation. This includes ensuring smooth pre-contractual risk assessments of Microsoft products and services, and fully defining the specific aspects of their obligations that dovetail with our offerings. We are also working with customers for input to update our contracts, as needed, so they remain fit for purpose under the DORA framework.
2. To help customers manage ICT risks and establish an internal governance and control framework, we provide in our products and services a broad set of built-in ICT risk management capabilities required by DORA. For example, on aspects related to information protection concerns, Microsoft Defender for Cloud performs continuous threat assessment, detection, and response, and Microsoft Secure Score helps assess and improve security posture across workloads. Likewise, for other aspects, such as incident management, resilience testing, and incident information sharing, vital functionality is provided by corresponding Microsoft offerings, including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft 365 Service Health dashboard, and Azure Service Health.
3. To help customers with incident management, classification, and reporting, our security and compliance offerings provide sophisticated capabilities for supporting incident management requirements, including tools and services for efficient incident detection and investigation, as well ensuring timely incident reporting and response as required. Azure Security Center, for example, ensures timely detection and response, and Microsoft 365 Health dashboard and Microsoft Defender work together to provide a comprehensive approach to incident management, classification, and reporting.  

Why DORA matters to global financial services 

DORA represents a significant step forward in strengthening the operational resilience of the financial services sector. By standardizing how entities manage, report, and work together to minimize ICT risks, DORA aims to protect the financial system from a wide range of threats and disruptions.  

DORA is not simply a new regulatory framework for the EU. Rather, it is an important milestone on the road to broader financial services resilience around the world, fostering an important emphasis on information sharing, transparency, and collective responsibility that promise to unlock the full potential of cloud and AI, while keeping businesses and their customers safer.  

Microsoft’s commitment to helping ensure compliance with DORA 

Microsoft is working intensively with our financial services customers to ensure a smooth and productive pathway to DORA compliance, while also preparing to meet the requirements under DORA that would apply to Microsoft on the basis of our designation as a critical ICT service provider. 

This is only a continuation of the investments we have made for over a decade in working with regulatory agencies to address common needs and challenges, and building products to help financial services firms strengthen cyber resilience in an evolving regulatory environment.  

We see DORA as a natural step forward to advance operational resilience in financial services, and we will continue working with regulators in other jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom, which are implementing measures that harmonize with DORA. 

Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services

Unlock business value and deepen customer relationships in the era of AI

Learn more

Learn more 

To learn more about DORA and how Microsoft can help with cyber resilience in financial services, see these resources:

• To learn how Microsoft products and services map to the requirements under DORA, see Microsoft Product to DORA Regulation Guide for Customers.
• Visit our website to learn more about how Microsoft empowers financial services companies to achieve more.
• To learn more about Microsoft’s commitment to the advancement of ethical AI, see the Microsoft responsible AI standard.
• Discover more information on how Microsoft addresses threat and vulnerability management. 

The post 3 ways Microsoft is helping the financial industry prepare for new DORA regulations appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Microsoft for energy and resources

Achieve more with trusted solutions

Explore our solutions

A growing need to transform security

Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) at power companies know this reality well. They’re tasked with managing a complicated portfolio while protecting against cyber risks from both insiders and nation-state actors. Left unresolved, these challenges create a ripple effect across the enterprise and lead to issues like:   

• Increasingly complex environments: Widespread digital adoption combined with evolving customer preferences, decentralized energy generation, and a changing workforce are driving utility providers to rethink their services and business models to help increase flexibility and maintain a resilient grid. In a recent survey conducted by Guidehouse and Public Utilities Fortnightly, 61% of respondents agreed that increasing flexibility to improve energy system resilience is the highest priority outcome for utility investments today.²
• Tool fatigue: Many power companies work with hundreds of disparate management tools that are costly to manage and limited in cross-visibility. These tools must be integrated and maintained by teams with the right skillsets. As tools are added or replaced and personnel come and go, companies face the inevitable costs of re-skilling and new integrations.
• Technical debt: While many utilities are designing new solutions in support of energy transition and the grid of the future, they still rely heavily on legacy infrastructures that carry significant tech debt. These legacy systems increase cybersecurity and operational risks as well as operational expenses through extended support costs, timelines, and integration complexities. Research shows companies pay an additional 10 to 20% to address tech debt on top of project base costs.³  

Modernizing infrastructure is costly and not easily adaptable as the risk landscape evolves. In fact, 59% of cybersecurity teams identify integration of legacy operational technology (OT) and modern information technology (IT) systems as their biggest challenge to securing OT.⁴ If you’re a CISO, how do you solve the challenge of securing both IT and OT against modern and fast-changing threats? 

The answer is to work with technology partners who not only understand threat actors around the world, but who also recognize the business risks and operational concerns across the industry. 

Increasing security and efficiency without sacrificing value 

With a unified security stack running on the Microsoft Cloud, utilities can significantly reduce the number of tools they manage every day for lower costs, time-savings, and better insight into IT and OT environments.  

For example, Turkish energy provider Enerjisa Üretim partnered with Senkron.Energy Digital Services to build Senkron ROC, a remote operations center that represents a critical piece of becoming cloud-native. Knowing that a single cyberthreat could shut down operations, Enerjisa Üretim also established its Operational Technology-Specific Security Operation Center (OT SOC), which relies on Microsoft Defender for IoT and Microsoft Sentinel to operate around the clock and process 3.3 million security events daily.   

The IBM Maximo Application Suite on Azure for asset operations and maintenance is another example. High performance and ultra-low latency combined with the multi-layered security capabilities of the Microsoft Azure stack provide a foundation for secure analytics that boost operational resiliency and reliability. With those advanced security features, utility providers can scale their operations to handle varying workloads without compromising operational security.  

Security solutions to meet your needs 

With Microsoft Security services, customers can leverage the latest technologies and deep industry understanding to enhance their security posture today. Microsoft Defender for IoT offers a complete inventory and continuous monitoring of connected assets across vendors and protocols; Microsoft Purview can secure and govern data across your entire estate while helping to reduce risk and meet compliance requirements; and Microsoft Sentinel provides enterprise-grade intelligent security analytics that help detect previously undetected threats and minimize false positives.  

Microsoft security solutions can also offer improvements across key use cases, including: 

• Augmentation of security operations centers (SOCs): Microsoft security solutions empower SOCs with cloud-native capabilities that enable faster detection and response times—even automating entire responses to security events. Machine learning, AI, and advanced analytics perform the heavy lifting so SOC workers can clarify what’s happening in the SOC environment and focus on the highest-priority events. Our unified security platform eases tool fatigue in SOCs with solutions that work together seamlessly for optimal visibility and efficiency. Solutions such as Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR and Microsoft Incident Response allow for expanded capabilities to support the SOC analysts in their mission.
• Business continuity and disaster recovery: Microsoft security solutions provide automated backup processes that are both scalable and cost-effective, and they can be integrated with on-premise data protection solutions. Our solutions include features like encryption and multi-factor authentication, which protect data during the backup and recovery process and help keep sensitive information secure. This holistic approach helps utility organizations quickly recover from data loss incidents, minimizing downtime and maintaining business continuity. 

Supporting the energy customer and partner ecosystem for a secure future 

To support continued innovation in data security and cloud adoption, we collaborated with the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and the Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office on an initiative for seamless integration of cloud technology into the grid of the future. Now in its pilot phase, the Cirrus cloud feasibility assessment tool (Cirrus) offers strategic guidance on how to prepare for, or deploy, a cloud solution responsibly, with the ultimate objective to strengthen the resilience and future adaptability of a decarbonized electric grid.  

Built on the security and reliability of Azure, the online version of Cirrus is also accessible through independent platforms with a license. The tool provides valuable insights to integrators, stakeholders, and operators by clarifying goals, future plans, and risk tolerance.  

With visual outputs like key performance indicator (KPI) graphs and consequence diagrams, Cirrus offers contextualized understanding, helping users prioritize critical systems and data based on potential benefits and risks associated with cloud disruptions. Additionally, Cirrus incorporates threat detection and alerts, leveraging Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) principles to empower organizations to make risk-informed decisions and address high-consequence events. 

Opportunities on the horizon with AI 

It’s an exciting time for the industry as AI creates tremendous potential for energy companies to increase their security posture.  

Imagine equipping workers with Microsoft Copilot for Security to help them identify threats earlier, build their risk mitigation skills, and respond to incidents faster. What took hours or days to complete can now be finished in minutes with AI. The efficiency is about more than labor costs. Every minute that goes by gives attackers more opportunity to wreak havoc across the board.  

With AI advancements analyzing trillions of security signals daily, together we can build a safer, more resilient digital energy ecosystem.  

Learn more with Microsoft for energy and resources 

Ready to dive deeper? Don’t miss our webinar, Rethinking cybersecurity in a renewable-powered energy system on October 10, 2024, where we will be sharing how leading energy companies are using the power of technology to safeguard their businesses. Read more about the webinar and sign up to attend.  

• Visit the Microsoft for energy and resources page.
• Read the Microsoft Industry Blogs: Energy and resources blog to learn about themes and actions critical for energy transition.
• Learn about Microsoft security solutions.
• Read more from the Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2023.
• Check out the Microsoft Defender family of products.
• Visit our Microsoft Copilot for Security Blog.
• Sign up for news and insights from Microsoft Security.

¹ Microsoft Digital Defense Report, October 2023.

² The Power Industry: Presently and Projected, Guidehouse, July 2024.

³ Breaking technical debt’s vicious cycle to modernize your business, McKinsey & Company, April 2023.

⁴ How is cyber innovation disrupting the energy sector and critical infrastructure?, World Economic Forum, October 2023.

The post How energy firms power the world with secure Microsoft technologies appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Join Microsoft at IBC2024

At Microsoft, AI isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a transformational force that is revolutionizing the way people work, collaborate, and innovate. Whether you are looking to optimize your operations, unlock new monetization opportunities, or empower your content creators, at IBC2024 you will see how we have moved beyond the AI hype and are deploying this technology with cutting-edge solutions tailored specifically for the media industry.

The opportunity to engage with so many customers, partners, and colleagues during this action-packed event deepens my excitement and optimism for the future of our industry. I always depart from Amsterdam feeling inspired by the creativity, innovation, and thought leadership showcased across the panels and presentations. Above all, it’s a joy to catch up with everyone and make new connections. 

How to make the most of your time with Microsoft at IBC2024

Visit our booth (located in Hall14, A14) to experience how we are reimagining media with AI

• Explore the power of AI: Unleash your creativity by crafting your own avatar with the assistance of Microsoft Designer. Transform yourself into a whimsical cartoon, a classic Renaissance painting, a superhero character, or any fantastical creation you can imagine. Let the fun begin! 
• Attend our demos: We have a great lineup of demos showcasing how you can optimize your operations, unlock new monetization opportunities, and empower your content creators with cutting-edge Azure products and Microsoft partners.
  • Enhance content searches with natural language scene descriptions by integrating new multimodal capabilities from Azure AI with IPV’s Curator Media Asset Management (MAM) product. Demonstrated by IPV.
  • Verify authentic content using Microsoft’s Content Integrity suite, which provides end-to-end Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA). Identify rogue viewing sessions to combat piracy in real-time, using EZDRM’s anti-piracy proof of concept (POC). Presented by Content Integrity.
  • Analyze email marketing lists and predict user behavior: Uncover strategic insights and optimize marketing campaigns using Yobi’s engine. Demonstrated by Yobi.
  • Create an interactive second-screen experience designed to accompany free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channel distribution, using the integration of Microsoft Azure PlayFab and Azure OpenAI Service. This interactive e-commerce experience highlights how viewers can seamlessly interact with content, driving deeper engagement and new monetization opportunities. Showcased by OBT Live.
  • Leverage AI assisted storytelling across script, production, and postproduction for content creation. Presented by Support Partners.
  • Maintain the original speaker’s voice using Azure AI-powered video translation services, featuring contextually accurate translation with voice cloning. Demonstrated by Cognizant.
• Visit the Microsoft Copilot lounge: The lounge will highlight various Copilot applications across the media ecosystem, including an advanced over the top (OTT) platform demo by UIC Digital and PwC, integrating AI copilot capabilities for personalized, real-time interactions and insights using sports content. A marketing demo will show the power of Copilot and Microsoft Fabric for data-driven conversations. Support Partners will showcase a series of content creation copilots spanning script analysis, casting and production, and editing.  

Learn more from Microsoft and industry experts at these insight-packed content sessions

• Transforming Media Production with AI: Insights and Innovations
  Join experts from Microsoft, Disney, Adobe, and Support Partners as they explore AI’s transformative impact on media production. This panel will showcase real-world applications for scriptwriting, storyboarding, production management, and post-production enhancements, with insights drawn from active AI projects—highlighting efficiency gains and innovation. Taking place in Hall 14, Content Everywhere Theater on Saturday, September 14, 2024 from 1:30 PM to 2:10 PM CEST.
• Unlocking Monetization panel
  Explore how emerging data science, machine learning, and conversational AI are revolutionizing media monetization. This session covers first-party consented data, connected TV, and second-screen apps driving omni-channel e-commerce experiences. Learn how these advancements are reshaping consumer demand and opening new monetization avenues for media brands. Taking place in Hall 14, Content Everywhere Theater on Sunday, September 15, 2024 from 12:15 PM to 12:35 PM CEST.
  • Presented by Microsoft, Yobi, and Fremantle.
• AI-Powered Interactive Marketing: Bringing Characters to Life
  Join Microsoft as we explore how generative AI and Azure are revolutionizing the creation of digital characters and animated storytellers. This session will demonstrate how studios can streamline previsualization workflows and enhance promotional marketing for animation. Discover how these AI-powered technologies are broadly applicable across the media industry for bringing characters to life. Taking place in Hall 14, Content Everywhere Theater on Friday, September 13, 2024 from 12:15 PM to 12:35 PM CEST. 
  • Presented by Microsoft and Support Partners.

Meet the Microsoft team  

Confirmed attendees so far include: 

• Silvia Candiani, Vice President Worldwide Telecommunications, Media and Gaming.
• Paige Johnson, Vice President Global Media and Entertainment Industry Marketing.
• Simon Crownshaw, Worldwide Strategy Director Media and Entertainment.
• Andy Beach, Chief Technology Officer of Media and Entertainment.
• Federico Suria, EMEA Regional Business Lead Telecommunications and Media.
• Andrew Jenks, Director of Media Provenance and Executive Director of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity at Microsoft.
• Craig Ashley, Director Global Media and Entertainment Industry Marketing. 

Join Microsoft at IBC2024 to see how we are reimagining media with AI. We are looking forward to seeing you! 

Microsoft’s commitment to the media and entertainment industry  

Microsoft enables media organizations to achieve more through a trusted and secure platform, built to empower content creators and distributors, enhance the viewer experience, and reimagine monetization strategies. More information can be found on the Microsoft media and entertainment industry solutions website.

Microsoft at IBC2024

Gain critical insights, share expertise, and unlock business opportunities

Explore the event

The post Microsoft at IBC2024: Reimagining media with AI appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Maximizing AI: Category management and more

Buying habits shift quickly in today’s consumer-driven world. For retailers, especially grocers, providing customers with affordable, fresh, and convenient options while navigating the impacts of inflation and supply chain disruption is critical. Meeting these expectations requires creating and maintaining a supply chain centered around customer demand—no easy task when supply chain functions are siloed, data is disparate, and needs change from day to day.

Together, Blue Yonder and Microsoft are unlocking a new era of value for retailers with AI. With AI-powered solutions, retailers can empower their teams to make decisions based on access to real-time data and intelligent insights. AI has allowed us to reimagine planning, making it possible for retailers to operate more effectively by transforming category management into an agile, responsive, and ongoing process that is tightly synchronized with the broader supply chain.

Microsoft Cloud for Retail

Connect your customers, your people, and your data

Accelerate retail growth

AI-powered category management makes it simple to keep the end consumer the focal point of your supply chain functions, helping retailers quickly achieve several critical capabilities:

• Address demand across every channel
• Plan at the hyperlocal level
• Optimize for demand in real time
• Factor in space and labor parameters
• Monitor and adjust instantly
• Identify and respond to opportunities and concerns quickly
• Enable continuous learning with constant space and assortment performance feedback
• Share updated demand forecasts across the supply chain

Enabling AI in this way facilitates a constantly improving demand forecast as the AI model builds iteratively on the data provided, allowing planners across the entire value chain to make better decisions for the business. It’s clear that, properly integrated, AI is not just a technological advancement but rather a strategic tool that can lead to improved customer experiences, operational efficiencies, and ultimately, financial growth and scale for retailers.

Blue Yonder and Microsoft teams recently collaborated to present a webinar titled “Supercharge Your Category Management Process with AI Assistance.” In this presentation, we introduced category managers to the many ways AI-powered assortment can help streamline category management and empower faster, smarter decision-making.

But category management is just one piece of the modern supply chain puzzle. In this blog post, we’ll discuss some of the major connecting points between category management and the overarching supply chain and how understanding the interplay between components can help you begin to realize the art of the possible with supply chain AI.

To that end, we’re looking at three major considerations for making the most of category management within a broader, AI-powered supply chain.

1. Synchronizing with the overall supply chain

One crucial thing to consider is the extent to which your category management process must be synchronized with the broader supply chain to enable an agile, responsive, iterative process. This requires thinking about how you get the initial data, and then how you operationalize it — how you put the data to work. Everything should be framed in terms of the end consumer as the focal point, making sure that you address demand across all channels. Doing so normalizes the physical and the digital channels, enabling hyperlocal planning at the individual store level.

It used to be that whatever the practice was, you would cluster stores and talk about stores that had similar formats, planning similarly for all store locations based on one generalized model. Now, with the integration of AI-powered insights and analytics, we’re getting into hyperlocal store planning, where you can really reflect not only the local community shoppers who are making the trip into brick-and-mortar locations, but also support the way that buyers want to shop online, normalizing those two experiences.

But this also requires acute awareness around demand planning, as you have to essentially make sure that demand planning is optimized in real time. This is why the correlation with the supply chain is so important: because you’re reflecting the latest trends, but you’re also working around the space and labor parameters in the store and optimizing in real time to make sure that demand planning is updated accordingly. This ability to execute on constantly changing data across workstreams—to monitor and adjust on the fly—is key to achieving the agility piece that’s so necessary for responding with flexibility to market demands and driving better margins for the business.

2. Enabling collaborative data sharing

Data sharing sits squarely at the intersection between retail consumer goods and category management. In an AI-supported category management process, you have category captains managing entire shelves of a category and gleaning invaluable insights in the process about the performance of products on the shelves, both physical and digital. These insights inform and support their retail partnerships in ways that weren’t possible until very recently.

Cross-capability data sharing allows you to identify the problems and root causes, understand them quickly, take action, and then implement that continuous learning. With interoperability, you can leverage that AI-powered continuous learning component around space and assortment performance, feeding that data back into the forecasting engine to generate an updated view of demand that can be shared across the supply chain so that the demand forecast is constantly improving, allowing planners across the entire value chain to make better decisions.

But a plan is only as good as the ability to execute it, so we move on to thinking about the execution piece and how to optimize that with store-level compliance.

3. Pulling in the store as a node in the supply chain

Syncing this concept of category management with the supply chain is critical for high-impact results because this is where operationalizing your data becomes real. It’s important to understand that integrated architecture is not an orchestrated ecosystem. In order to have a holistic view of the business, synchronization has to take place. You’re reducing the latency to have better data synchronization across various supply chain functions; you’re enabling the collaboration both with store associates but also with brands and retailers, empowering adaptive decision-making by connecting the planning and execution functions.

What’s pivotal to realize here is a theme that we’ll see become more prominent over time: the store is now a huge data source that needs to be integrated with the rest of the supply chain. As we see customer experience playing an increasingly pivotal role in the supply chain, we see a greater need to incorporate store-specific data. It’s no longer that we’re just optimizing store operations off to the side—the store and its operations are now part of the supply chain itself.

Many organizations seek to address concerns around siloed technology, and yet, the retail store often continues to be an overlooked component. Many retailers have warehouse management systems that are connected to their transportation management solutions (TMS), but very rarely do they also connect the stores as being a node in the supply chain for real inventory visibility. So, when we think about optimizing across the different channels with e-commerce and fulfillment, structuring warehouses and the fulfillment network, it becomes more relevant to connect the data across these functions.

Powering a connected supply chain with Microsoft and Blue Yonder

Integrated AI across the supply chain has incredible potential to enhance business performance and reduce volatility with predictive intelligence. Together, Microsoft and Blue Yonder are making it easier for retailers to get ahead with technologies that empower agility, transformation, and innovative operations at scale.

Bringing together the best of supply chain technology and cloud platform capabilities, Blue Yonder and Microsoft are at the forefront of a cognitive revolution of supply chain innovation. Blue Yonder’s Luminate® Cognitive Platform lays the foundation for a truly intelligent autonomous supply chain with predictive and generative AI capabilities that are industry-specific. It’s built on Microsoft Azure, which is a game changer in the cloud platform space, ensuring data is unified for centralized and accessible insights. Our partnership enables supply chain innovation by connecting information across the value chain for better collaboration, scalability, security, and compliance.

Sainsbury’s: Results that speak for themselves

Sainsbury’s is a trusted UK brand, loved by millions of consumers and operating more than 2,000 store locations across its Sainsbury’s and Argos brands. A longtime user of Blue Yonder’s warehouse management, Sainsbury’s sought to implement new AI-powered solutions in 2023 to improve forecasting and replenishment capabilities and increase sustainability.

Blue Yonder has helped Sainsbury’s to tackle several significant goals:

• Realizing improvements in inventory stockholding and availability key performance indicators (KPIs) with machine learning (ML) forecasting and multi-echelon replenishment
• Transforming Sainsbury’s architecture and business processes to become easier to understand, scalable, resilient, and nimble, as well as able to support any future business changes quickly
• Reducing the current number of key systems to eliminate redundant functionality, reduce technology risk, and improve the user experience for colleagues, suppliers, and business-to-business (B2B) customers
• Offering a more automated, simplified user experience and standardized workflows to increase user productivity

Our partnership with Sainsbury’s has already resulted in significant savings for the organization as part of its ongoing plan to future-proof the business. Sainsbury’s leadership confirmed in April 2024 that the company is unlocking significant savings and have already improved ambient availability, using real-time forecasting to optimize sales, waste, and stock equation.

Implementing Blue Yonder’s solutions built on the resilient, scalable Microsoft Azure cloud platform, Sainsbury’s has elevated its ability to monitor and respond to changing customer needs with new capabilities allowing prediction and prevention of potential supply chain disruptions. Blue Yonder has helped Sainsbury’s take advantage of ML-based forecasting and ordering capabilities to help stores better manage fresh and perishable products, while also achieving visibility, orchestration, and collaboration across the end-to-end supply chain, using automation to make better business decisions.

Explore solutions from Microsoft and Blue Yonder

• Learn more about Blue Yonder category management and Microsoft Azure
• Learn more about Blue Yonder Luminate Cognitive Platform
• Learn more about Blue Yonder Orchestrator
• Explore Microsoft Cloud for Retail

The post Supply chain AI for the new era of value realization appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

The goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 requires tremendous investment and rapid innovation. From solutions that optimize grid management and carbon capture and storage to more sustainable, resilient mines, AI technologies can help address the biggest challenges in the complex, multidimensional global energy transition.  

Microsoft for Energy and Resources

Achieve more in the energy and resources industry with trusted solutions from Microsoft.

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Accelerate the clean energy roadmap with new AI innovation 

We’re proud to share some highlights from the past year, starting with the announcement that Cognite is Microsoft Partner of the Year 2024. Cognite and finalists Scheider Electric, Accenture-Avanade, and Kongsberg exemplify the new wave of innovation currently transforming the energy sector.  

Cognite is integrating new AI advances shared at last year’s Ignite event, including Microsoft Fabric and expanded Microsoft Copilot experiences. In January 2024, Microsoft and Cognite announced a collaboration that integrates flagship product Cognite Data Fusion with Microsoft Fabric and Azure OpenAI Service. Cognite AI is a prebuilt, comprehensive AI architecture specifically designed for energy and resource companies to deliver a faster path to implementing AI. Cognite Data Fusion incorporates AI across the data stack from generative AI-powered contextualization to an intuitive natural language Copilot interface embedded in day-to-day tools. Most recently, Cognite announced a new solution, Cognite Atlas AI which brings context augmentation generation to Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, pushing the boundaries of what language models can do for industrial organizations

Schneider Electric continues making an impact with solutions that accelerate digital transformation and sustainability. Built on Azure, the Schneider Electric EcoStruxure Grid solution portfolio shows the company’s commitment to a more digital and electric world, and together with its Grid Operations Platform as a Service, supports the growth of distributed energy resources, microgrids, energy communities, and other flexible resources across digitally planned, designed and operated lifecycles. AVEVA, part of Schneider Electric, also uses Microsoft technology to help accelerate the energy transition and support long-term decarbonization with a cloud-native industrial data and application platform to give energy companies a digital backbone to unlock, contextualize, and share data for better decision making and more profitable and efficient operations. 

Driving more sustainable, efficient operations in asset-heavy industries, Kongsberg leverages the Microsoft Cloud and AI for its Industrial Work Surface, an industrial metaverse that includes mixed reality and digital twins. The solution is designed to help energy companies improve decision-making, maximize business performance, and drive value across the organization—in support of the world’s growing demand for more secure, equitable, and sustainable energy.

Microsoft partners SLB, Halliburton, and Accenture are also innovating with Microsoft Azure Data Manager for Energy, a secure, reliable, hyperscale and fully managed cloud-based data platform service. Customers can speed toward goals by taking advantage of easy interoperability across an extensible application ecosystem. They can integrate virtually any dataset, application, or cloud service while leveraging the applications they already use from SLB, Halliburton, Accenture, and many others. The platform is expanding to new regions and offers a new developer tier pricing to increase accessibility for more partners and customers. 

We are also pleased to announce EY as the Sustainability Changemaker for the second year in a row. Creating customer tools built on Microsoft technology has positioned EY as a leader in sustainability consulting within the energy sector. With EY’s tailored solutions, decision-makers in the energy industry can now oversee transformations across their enterprises, leveraging technology and data to modernize governance structures, tackle industry-specific risks, meet environmental, social, and governance (ESG) obligations, and deliver value for both their organizations and their stakeholders. These solutions provide a comprehensive view into energy demand, verifiable and assured value chain data, and sustainability performance management, enabling energy companies to achieve their sustainability goals and enhance operational efficiency.

Sharing thought leadership at industry events 

You can learn more about Microsoft and partner innovations at Microsoft Ignite either online or in person in Chicago on November 18 to 22, 2024. This is the first Ignite event to include both customers and partners, and we hope you’ll join us to celebrate our partners and learn more about how the latest advances in AI are delivering business value to our energy customers. 

The Microsoft Energy and Resources Industry team is also excited to connect with customers and partners at upcoming events including the ONS conference in Stavanger on August 26 to 29, 2024 and the SLB Digital Forum 2024 in Monaco on September 16 to 19, 2024. These events will feature how new developments in AI and other digital technologies are transforming energy systems for a more secure, equitable, and sustainable energy future. You can always anticipate exciting news at the SLB Digital forum, where two years ago SLB announced the availability of the SLB Enterprise Data Solution, a comprehensive data management toolkit built on Azure Data Manager for Energy. The innovation is a result of the expanded strategic partnership between SLB and Microsoft, includes enhancements to Azure Data Manager for Energy, and a carbon capture and storage (CCS) initiative with Northern Lights joint venture to support global climate goals by accelerating development of scalable, cost-effective solutions for the CCS value-chain. 

Energizing the energy transition with new startups 

The climate crisis affects people globally, and an inclusive startup ecosystem is critical for helping ensure that solutions have far-reaching benefits. We are proud to support underrepresented startup founders at events like CERAWeek and through programs such as Advancing Climatetech and Clean Energy Leaders Program (ACCEL) from Greentown Labs, Browning the Green Space, and the Energy Transition Studio for Startups which we launched this year in cooperation with high-growth climate tech companies FlexDAO, Line Vision, and Utilidata. The program is designed to empower energy transition startups worldwide, and we are pleased to welcome six more companies to the first cohort, including Carbon Guardian, GridBeyond, Hygenox, IEMS, Noda Intelligent Systems, and Norwegian Hydrogen.

Investing in sustainable AI 

In addition to supporting startups, we are also engaging in strategic regional partnerships to help ensure a sustainable future and equitable access to energy and digital technologies for everyone. Microsoft is investing $1.5 billion in G42, a leading AI company based in Abu Dhabi, to co-innovate and deliver advanced AI solutions with Azure across the Middle East, central Asia, and Africa. Microsoft and G42 are partnering to invest $1 billion in a data center and Kenya, which will be powered by geothermal energy and give east Africa access to Microsoft Azure. Other global investments include a $2.2 billion investment in Malaysia’s cloud and AI transformation, and a significant commitment to enable a cloud and AI-powered future for Thailand. 

Unlocking the transformative potential of AI for sustainability also requires best practices for investment, digital and data infrastructure, resource usage—such as Microsoft’s deal with Brookfield Asset Management to invest more than $10 billion on renewable energy capacity to power data centers—policy and governance, and workforce development. To learn more about AI enablement, read the Microsoft AI and Sustainability Playbook. We are also investing in the sustainability of AI itself, with projects to optimize datacenter energy and water efficiency. 

Partnerships to advance our energy future 

This blog reflects the power of partnership and the growing importance and potential for AI in the energy industry and beyond. This has been a year of exciting change, with groundbreaking advances like the launch of Copilot+ PCs—from both Microsoft and our OEM ecosystem—partnership with OpenAI, and a rethinking of our cloud infrastructure to optimize performance and energy efficiency. 

Microsoft Copilot continues to evolve, with innovations that include the world’s first Copilot in both CRM and ERP with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot. Chevron is already using Copilot in Dynamics 365 Guides to transform frontline operations and optimize its operations, empower workers, and infuse informed decisions throughout its value chain. 

Success stories like these remind us once again that people working together are at the heart of every broad-sweeping, foundational transformation. The world’s complex energy challenges demand global collaboration as we advance toward a more secure, equitable, and sustainable future in an ever-evolving ecosystem of innovation.  

Learn more about Microsoft Energy and Resources solutions 

• Energy and resources – Microsoft Industry Blogs 
• Microsoft energy partner webinar series 
• Microsoft AI solutions  
• Microsoft Azure AI services  
• Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform   

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