Increasingly, Frontier Firms—those at the leading edge of innovation and productivity—are demonstrating how AI can unlock new levels of competitive advantage. However, realizing this potential goes beyond simply deploying tools and solutions; it requires a continuous, enterprise-wide strategy that aligns skill-building with broader business priorities. As these organizations continue to transform, new skills and capabilities will inevitably become essential. 

For Frontier Firms, AI skilling is a continuous investment, as well as an integral job requirement. In our conversations with customers, many have indicated they expect their employees from all disciplines to spend 10–20% of their work week on learning and integrating AI into their daily work to deliver the most impact.

At Microsoft, we’ve seen firsthand how creating a culture of continuous AI learning empowers employees, and we shared our insights in our previous blog, “Accelerate employee AI skilling: Insights from Microsoft.” Now, we’re shifting the spotlight to our Frontier Firm customers—drawing key takeaways from the skill-building strategies they’re using to turn ambition into adoption with an AI-ready workforce that drives innovation.

1. When leadership champions AI learning, the whole organization moves faster

Executive alignment plays a pivotal role in shaping how AI adoption takes hold. When leadership drives the learning agenda and anchors it in business strategy, it sets the stage for cultural change. One of the most effective ways to do this is through cross-functional collaboration that connects governance, priorities, and impact. We’ve seen this play out at organizations where leaders are shaping AI strategy through unified, cross-functional action. 

Customer highlight: Bupa APAC is driving smarter healthcare solutions with an AI-ready workforce and Microsoft Copilot 

With AI reshaping healthcare, Bupa APAC saw an opportunity to make customer experiences more seamless, proactive, and personalized—from automating claims processing to developing preventative care plans tailored for individual needs. Bupa created a Center of Enablement that aligned risk, legal, technology, and business teams to develop a unified approach to responsible AI use. This early collaboration ensured alignment between AI ambition and the needs of different functions, laying the foundation for a tailored, role-based skilling strategy supporting the business priorities. It developed an AI skilling strategy and created a structured environment for AI experimentation, using Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and other AI-powered tools to automate tasks, refine workflows, and improve efficiency. Bupa upskilled its workforce with Microsoft 365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot, generating more than 410,000 lines of AI-assisted code, initiating more than 30,000 Copilot chats, and accelerating more than100 AI use cases to improve care.

AI is a critical part of our transformation, but technology alone isn’t enough. Our focus has been on building the right skills and governance to make AI effective across the organization.

—Akhil Mittal, Cloud Platform and DevOps Manager, Bupa APAC

The Bupa APAC example reinforces how a top-down AI strategy that embraces a culture of learning creates clarity and a shared purpose across teams—equipping employees to not only understand but also act on AI goals. For leaders thinking through their own approach, explore Creating an AI Learning Culture: Five considerations to empower teams with AI skills that can guide you and inspire a skills-first mindset.

Creating an AI learning culture

Read the paper

2. Tailored learning builds confidence and drives adoption

No matter how you encourage workforce experimentation and AI learning, one principle remains essential: generic training rarely leads to real behavior change. A tailored approach targeted to individual skill levels and job requirements is essential. Employees are far more likely to adopt AI when they understand how it applies to their day-to-day work. This clarity doesn’t just drive individual confidence, it empowers employees to solve problems faster, service customers better, and contribute to outcomes that matter to the business. Leading organizations offer a compelling example of how connecting learning to everyday responsibilities can power transformation at scale. 

Customer highlight: Commonwealth Bank invests in AI skills and Microsoft Copilot to drive innovation 

As customer expectations rise, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) seeks to harness AI to develop smarter, more secure, and highly customized banking experiences at scale. Recognizing that AI’s full potential depends on workforce readiness, CommBank launched a structured skilling initiative to equip employees with the knowledge and tools to apply AI effectively across the organization. CommBank embedded AI skilling across all levels of the organization through three structured learning paths: 

1. Leading with AI equips executives and senior leaders with the skills to guide AI adoption strategically, facilitating responsible implementation and alignment with business priorities. 

2. Working with AI provides employees across departments with practical training to use AI-powered tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot to improve productivity and assist decision-making. 

3. Building with AI develops technical expertise among engineers, data scientists, and developers—offering specialized learning with tools like GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Power BI to create AI-powered solutions. 

AI skilling has equipped employees to adopt AI effectively, with 84% of 10,000 Copilot users reporting they wouldn’t go back to working without it and approximately 30% of GitHub Copilot code suggestions adopted—driving efficiency and smarter decision-making. 

With Microsoft 365 Copilot, early adopters reported saving 16% of their time by reducing repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on more meaningful work and bring their best selves to what they do.

—Dan Jermyn, Chief Decision Scientist, CommBank

As the CommBank story shows, when AI learning is tailored to specific skillsets and the day-to-day realities of work, it becomes a catalyst for impact. From the frontlines to leadership, employees gain the confidence to use AI in ways that enhance productivity and customer value. For organizations looking to jumpstart team training and close skills gaps with tailored learning, we recommend the Microsoft Learn for Organizations. 

3. Generating organizational momentum is possible through peer-led learning communities

Pairing learning programs with peer-driven communities helps amplify early wins, reinforces skills, scales momentum, and transforms individual learning into collective progress. These communities thrive when employees have space to share real use cases, ask questions, and learn alongside trusted peers. It’s a model that brings learning to life, and one that is gaining traction with organizations around the globe. 

Customer highlight: AI and the human advantage: Adecco Group’s AI skilling strategy fuels productivity with Microsoft Copilot

Recognizing AI’s evolution and its impact on work prompted Adecco to provide AI skills to employees and job seekers. To stay competitive, it aimed to embed AI into operations while ensuring its workforce had the expertise to use it effectively. 

The company embedded AI across operations to automate tasks and improve decision-making. Through an internal AI operations team, training, microlearning, and Copilot, Adecco is equipping its employees with skills to apply AI effectively in daily work and client interactions. 

To support internal enablement, The Adecco Group created the AI Influencer Community, where employees engage with AI experts, share use cases, and explore best practices. In parallel, the company collaborated with Microsoft and worked closely with its Akkodis Tech Academy (a Microsoft Training Services Partner) on AI upskilling programs. These efforts have been deployed in 12 countries, training more than 12,000 employees in AI fundamentals, data analytics, and other critical digital skills, helping teams work more efficiently, support evolving client needs, and contribute to solution development. 

Skilling is really important for us because people are at the heart of our organization. We have a responsibility to ensure our people have the skills to engage with AI, use new tools, and embrace new ways of thinking.

—Caroline Basyn, Chief Digital and Information Officer, The Adecco Group

What stands out from Addeco’s experience is that scaling AI fluency didn’t hinge on formal programs alone—it grew from within. By allowing employees to learn from each other and explore AI together, you can create a more sustainable, community-powered model for adoption. This is a reminder that the most powerful adoption strategies empower connection and shared curiosity.

Bringing it all together to build an AI-ready workforce 

When considering these examples, a pattern emerges. Organizations leading in AI fluency aren’t simply adopting tools, they’re building the conditions for their people to thrive with them. While every organization requires its own unique approach, learning from current successes and adapting for your specific goals and workforce is key to achieving results. 

To help you advance your organization’s AI skilling efforts, we’ve created the AI Skills Strategy: The Starter Guide, a reflection tool to plan strategic conversations around AI skill-building. This guide is designed for the earliest stages of AI skilling strategy development before a formal plan is in place. It helps you clarify your skilling purpose, identify key stakeholders for all learning initiatives, and begin uncovering where skilling efforts can deliver the most value. By working through these high-level questions, you and your team can align shared goals and lay the groundwork for a tailored, adoptable AI skilling approach that can help you accelerate your organization’s AI growth and reach your business goals. 

¹ IDC InfoBrief, Sponsored by Microsoft, Business Opportunity of AI, IDC #US52019124, November 2024 

The post Discover three skilling insights that set Frontier Firms apart appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

Although every organization’s AI transformation is unique and blueprints are scarce, we’ve learned that having the right skills across the organization is key. By implementing skill-building initiatives throughout the company, we’re reimagining how we work at Microsoft and aligning those initiatives to the functions that are critical to how we do business.

Through this process, we’re constantly uncovering valuable insights on how to lead by learning—often developing the playbooks from scratch. By applying these insights, we advance our AI transformation and benefit our workforce, customers, and partners around the world. We’re glad to share our findings with you to help your teams skill up to make the most of AI for innovation, growth, and opportunities.

Grow your AI skills with specialized training programs

Organizational transformation now requires AI-first skills; yet it can be challenging to plan modern and effective skill-building programs.

We understand the importance of providing our employees—both technical and non-technical—with the AI skills to grow and evolve with the business and the technology, along with the ability to apply these skills every day. Teams across Microsoft have established innovative and effective AI training programs that cater to specific roles in marketing, sales, engineering, and beyond.

Although there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to AI training, our experience has yielded some widely applicable takeaways which can be helpful to organizations that want to build AI skills. Our new e-book, 10 Best Practices to Accelerate Your Employees’ AI Skills: Lessons and experiences from Microsoft’s skilling initiatives, highlights some of the vital lessons we’ve learned that can help support you in implementing skill-building programs crucial to your AI transformation.

Power your AI transformation with our AI learning highlights

The e-book explores many of the lessons we’ve learned in our ongoing AI evolution. Our experiences can help inspire and inform your path forward, too, as you and your teams get skilled up and ready to power AI transformation with the Microsoft Cloud. In particular, the e-book showcases stories from AI skill-building initiatives implemented by four Microsoft teams:

• Microsoft Marketing, a diverse collective of professionals, ranging from creative roles to business strategists and technical experts.
• MCAPS Academy, the team responsible for training sellers globally within the Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS) organization.
• Worldwide Learning Engineering, the team tasked with architecting and building apps and platforms that support MCAPS and some of the Microsoft skill-building offerings for customers and partners.
• The Microsoft Garage, an innovation platform that enables collaboration and experimentation through hackathons, workshops, talks, training sessions, and more.

Here’s what we learned.

10 best practices to improve employee AI skills

1. Give space for exploration

Encourage a culture of learning by providing employees with the time and tools to explore AI.

Our Worldwide Learning Engineering team has dedicated time to delve into AI, and this fosters an environment where curiosity and innovation can thrive. Additionally, The Garage’s experiments, such as the SkillUp AI Challenge, provide employees with a sandbox for practical AI applications, encouraging both personal and professional growth.

2. Make learning fun

Create a low-pressure, engaging environment where employees can learn at their own pace.

The Garage’s SkillUp AI Challenge incorporates fun, interactive exercises that make AI relatable and enjoyable for all skill levels. Similarly, the Marketing AI practitioner hub offers gamified learning paths that enable marketers to integrate AI into their daily workflows in an entertaining way.

3. Provide clear, structured learning paths

Simplify the learning experience with structured paths tailored to different skill levels and roles.

MCAPS Academy Flight Plans offer role-specific learning paths, helping to ensure that technical and non-technical sales teams alike have clear directions for their AI learning. Moreover, the Marketing Learning team has developed a curriculum that supports marketers in becoming regular AI practitioners through well-defined learning stages.

4. Make it role specific

Adapt AI training programs to the unique needs of each role within the organization.

The Worldwide Learning Engineering team focuses on providing engineers with opportunities for deep technical engagement through dedicated learning time and advanced AI tools. At the same time, the MCAPS Academy addresses the specific needs of a different job role—sales—by blending foundational knowledge with real-world applications to enhance AI fluency.

5. Start with foundations

Begin AI training with foundational knowledge to help ensure that all employees have a solid understanding of AI basics.

The Marketing Learning team introduces marketers to AI through simple, foundational concepts before progressing to more complex applications. Likewise, the MCAPS Academy provides basic AI training to new hires before guiding them through more advanced, role-specific learning paths.

6. Have a plan to update the content regularly

Maintain the relevance of AI training programs by regularly updating content.

The Worldwide Learning Engineering team continuously refreshes its training materials to keep up with the latest advancements in AI technology. Meanwhile, The Garage schedules regular updates for its skill-building exercises to help ensure that they remain engaging and current.

7. Drive awareness and continued adoption

Promote ongoing AI learning and adoption through awareness campaigns and reinforcement.

The Marketing AI practitioner hub provides regular touchpoints to encourage consistent AI practice among marketers. Similarly, the MCAPS Academy uses newsletters and internal communications to keep the sales force informed and engaged in AI learning.

8. Set clear guidelines for responsible use

Establish and communicate guidelines for the responsible use of AI to maintain standards.

The Marketing Learning team’s curriculum emphasizes the importance of responsible AI use, providing clear guidelines and best practices. The Worldwide Learning Engineering team also integrates responsible AI principles into its training sessions, highlighting the significance of these considerations in AI development.

9. Let employees learn from each other

Facilitate peer-to-peer learning opportunities to enhance AI skills through collaboration.

The Garage hosts show-and-tell sessions where employees share their AI projects and insights. For engineers, the Worldwide Learning Engineering team organizes knowledge-sharing workshops to promote collaborative learning.

10. Leverage existing resources

Take advantage of available resources to support AI skill-building initiatives.

The MCAPS Academy makes the most of existing training platforms and materials, integrating them into its AI learning paths. And The Garage draws on external AI tools and resources to complement its interactive learning programs.

AI learning hub on Microsoft Learn

Get the skills to power your AI transformation

Get started

Build value and accelerate growth with AI skills

Our experiences as customer zero for AI training have been transformative—and we’re just getting started. By empowering our teams with the right skills, we’re not only driving innovation within our organization but also setting a strong foundation for the future, supporting our employees and customers, creating business value and growth, and fostering innovation.

As organizations around the world look to build AI skills and to scale this powerful technology throughout their business, we’re glad to share these insights to support your AI transformation. Together, we can lead in the AI-powered world and unlock new levels of value for our workforce, customers, and partners—today, tomorrow, and beyond.

The post Accelerate employee AI skilling: Insights from Microsoft appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.