That’s why I’m excited to share that Microsoft Azure has completed an independent, industry‑led GxP supplier audit conducted through the Joint Audit Group managed by Ingelheimer Kreis (IK).

GxP refers to regulations that ensure quality, safety, and data integrity in highly regulated environments, particularly in life sciences. This milestone provides independent validation that Azure’s systems and processes meet the standards required to support regulated workloads in the cloud, giving organizations greater confidence to accelerate their AI transformation and scale innovation responsibly.

“Overall, the audit observed strong organizational maturity, robust processes, and effective governance structures. Microsoft demonstrated a high degree of transparency, collaboration, and readiness to address regulatory expectations. Furthermore, Microsoft demonstrated strong maturity in quality, security, compliance, engineering, and operational processes. The organization showed strong commitment from leadership and robust operational controls.”

As quoted by the Joint Audit Group managed by Ingelheimer Kreis

This milestone builds on Azure’s longstanding commitment to compliance, reinforcing trust across life sciences and other highly regulated industries while helping accelerate broader cloud and AI adoption.

Raising the bar for cloud trust in life sciences and beyond

IK conducted a GxP-aligned supplier audit of selected aspects of Microsoft’s cloud service operations within an agreed scope. The sessions provided insight into governance, security and software engineering practices, and operational processes that may impact regulated GxP use of Microsoft Azure and related services. The audit was performed using a spot-check approach and reflects the information presented by Microsoft during the sessions. The IK audit results provide IK members with assurance regarding the Azure controls environment, enabling members to work to remove compliance blockers, accelerate their adoption of Azure services, and obtain confidence and trust in the security and sovereignty controls of Azure.

The joint GxP audit provides pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations with a higher level of confidence that Azure’s operational, security, and compliance practices meet industry expectations for validated GxP workloads. By having a coalition of major pharmaceutical manufacturers audit Microsoft’s cloud controls, customers gain assurance that Azure’s change management processes, evergreen update model, and underlying operational rigor align with the standards historically required in on-premises validated environments. This independent industry assessment reduces longstanding adoption barriers for regulated workloads and gives customers a basis for trusting Azure as a compliant, reliable platform for GxP relevant applications.

Microsoft Azure is designed to meet stringent requirements for data residency, privacy, and compliance. With Microsoft, organizations can keep sensitive data within defined geographic boundaries and under local jurisdictional control.

Microsoft offers a comprehensive set of compliance offerings to help organizations comply with national, regional, and industry-specific requirements. Backed by more than 100 compliance certifications—including ISO, HIPAA, and HITRUST, Azure meets rigorous security and privacy requirements across global and industry frameworks.

Securing the future: a collaborative approach

Security and compliance in the cloud is a shared responsibility, and the division of those responsibilities between the cloud service provider and customer depends on the cloud offering utilized. Microsoft works to ensure that we are compliant with industry and international standards, and customers are responsible for ensuring their data within the Microsoft Cloud is protected in a manner that is compliant with the standards and regulations imposed on the customer.

Azure integrates with services such as Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager and Defender for Cloud to provide organizations with visibility into their compliance posture and enable proactive governance across cloud environments.

We also provide clear guidance and detailed, auditable evidence through the Microsoft Trust Center and the Service Trust Portal. These tools exist to give customers transparency and confidence, pairing high‑level trust principles with concrete proof customers can use to meet their own regulatory and assurance needs.

With independently audited controls now recognized by leading multinational pharmaceutical companies, Azure gives life sciences organizations the confidence to run their regulated workloads in the cloud—so they can focus on what truly drives value: discovering new therapies, accelerating R&D, scaling clinical operations, and manufacturing medicines reliably at global scale. Instead of diverting resources toward duplicative cloud platform audits, customers can trust that Azure’s underlying operational rigor, change management processes, and security practices meet GxP expectations.

The audit strengthens the foundation that lets life sciences innovators move faster, modernize safely, and keep their focus on bringing breakthrough medicines and devices to patients. For more information on the audit, contact the team.

Empowering our customers

Microsoft remains committed to meeting today’s compliance, security, and regulatory standards. Across our cloud platforms and services, we maintain rigorous and independently validated controls, adhere to applicable laws and industry requirements, and continually strengthen our frameworks to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of customer data. This commitment is reinforced by foundational company policies, a robust global compliance program, and active oversight from senior leadership—ensuring that every Microsoft offering is built on trust, transparency, and responsible innovation.

By working with industry leaders and regulators to shape compliance frameworks and advance sovereign cloud capabilities, Azure supports the next era of regulated AI innovation. By upholding these standards, we empower organizations in regulated industries to operate confidently, knowing their workloads run on a platform designed to meet stringent expectations today and evolve alongside emerging regulatory guidance, validated by independent experts and experienced by customers every day.

More on our approach to trust and compliance

• Dive deeper into how leading life sciences organizations are building readiness and resilience with trusted cloud platforms. Explore the e-book, Reshaping Manufacturing and Supply Chain in Pharma and MedTech, to discover actionable strategies for compliance, innovation, and operational excellence in regulated manufacturing.
• Explore From Vision to Value: AI Use Cases Transforming Healthcare to learn how healthcare and life sciences organizations are applying AI today on trusted cloud platforms.
• To learn more about Microsoft’s approach to trust and compliance, explore resources at the Microsoft Trust Center.

Connect with us at upcoming industry events to see how Azure can help your organization achieve more with confidence.

The post Microsoft Azure achieves GxP milestone, reinforcing trust for regulated workloads appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

Leaders in the AI era are reimagining what AI can amplify: creativity, expertise, and the human ingenuity and leadership that drives progress. A recent IDC study commissioned by Microsoft shows that Frontier Firms are customizing AI for their unique workflows and seeing three times greater returns on their AI investments. Why? Because this approach keeps people at the center. They’re using AI to tackle big challenges, empower higher-value work, and help industries adapt quickly in a world where efficiency and resilience are non-negotiable.

Becoming Frontier isn’t reserved for tech disruptors or startups. Legacy brands across industries are bending the curve on AI innovation, pairing decades of expertise with AI-first differentiation to reinvent processes and accelerate growth. In a world where more than 99% of companies fail to reach 100 years in business,¹ centennial companies—brands that have been around for 100 years or more—are proving that reinvention is the key to longevity. Today, they’re using Microsoft AI to eliminate the mundane and unlock creativity to accelerate their journey to becoming Frontier.

Companies including The Kraft Heinz Company, Levi Strauss & Co., Wells Fargo, and Land O’Lakes have been serving customers for more than a century and remain leading household names because they never stood still. They’re positioning themselves at the forefront of AI innovation.

When you think about how quickly humans have grasped the concepts of AI, it’s influencing how they do everyday life right now. Compared to past technologies introduced into business or corporate settings, the learning curve and the adoption rate are not something that you have to worry about as much because people are actually craving it and they’re looking for it.

—Ken Meyer, Chief Information Officer for Enterprise Functions at Wells Fargo

These centennial brands show that reinvention isn’t a one-time event—it’s a mindset. By pairing their own expertise with a trusted partner like Microsoft, they’re transforming operations, accelerating innovation, and setting new benchmarks for what’s possible. Let’s look at how The Kraft Heinz Company, Levi Strauss & Co., Wells Fargo, and Land O’Lakes are leading the way.

Influencing the future with the wisdom of the past

In the consumer goods industry where companies are balancing shifting consumer preferences, supply chain complexity, and speed-to-market, AI-powered insights are especially crucial. The Kraft Heinz Company, one of the world’s leading food and beverage companies, is demonstrating how it is reaching for historical data as it prepares the organization to thrive in the future with the recent introduction of The Cookbook.

Built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI and trained on a proprietary central database, The Cookbook is a proprietary AI agent that puts decades of institutional wisdom around HEINZ Tomato Ketchup production processes at employees’ fingertips. With The Cookbook, users can ask questions on everything from the thickness and color of a batch of ketchup to insights about the efficiency of production processes, and more. Preserving and digitizing institutional knowledge and subject matter expertise in this way supports improvements in production consistency, quality, and efficiency—leaning into a legacy of innovation to maintain the quality that’s made HEINZ the world’s best-selling ketchup.

As part of our long-term strategy, we’re harnessing disruptive digital solutions to fuel growth across the organization. In doing so, we’re transforming the way we work, streamlining processes, enhancing decision making, and more—all of which enable us to continue delivering the great-tasting products consumers know and love as well as continue to innovate and address evolving preferences.

—Oliver Ganschar, Head of Digital Product Management and Innovation at The Kraft Heinz Company

The Cookbook joins a robust lineup of generative and agentic AI-powered projects already in use at The Kraft Heinz Company to optimize marketing, production, supply chain functions, and more. They have streamlined operations for Claussen pickles, cut manufacturing waste, and dramatically reduced timelines for brand asset creation across The Kraft Heinz Company’s portfolio. The digital-first solutions empower employees to focus on high-value tasks, make decisions rooted in data, and enhance engagement.

“When it comes to AI, we’re exploring integrated solutions that can drive scalability and connectivity across our organization end to end, rather than siloed deployment or disconnected applications,” said Ganschar. “We aim to create a connected ecosystem that enables our teams to work more efficiently and effectively, and this includes evaluating applications of generative and agentic AI in ways that we believe can unlock further value for our teams and the business.”

The Kraft Heinz Company and Microsoft have also collaborated on a Supply Chain Control Tower to preempt interruptions and develop digital twins of the company’s manufacturing facilities to virtually test and troubleshoot new processes. Together, these efforts hone The Kraft Heinz Company’s competitive edge, strengthening its ability to get products to market faster, better serve customers, and drive innovation.

Our collaboration with Microsoft has been an important part of our digital transformation, helping us drive innovation and efficiencies through machine learning and advanced analytics so we can get products into the market faster, better serve our customers and, ultimately, deliver on consumer demand.

—Oliver Ganschar, Head of Digital Product Management and Innovation at The Kraft Heinz Company

As The Kraft Heinz Company looks to continue leading the curve on AI innovation, it plans to scale The Cookbook beyond HEINZ Tomato Ketchup.

“We aim to use key learnings and insights from The Cookbook pilot phases to scale to other brands, products, and Kraft Heinz businesses, and we are currently in the process of exploring additional use cases for the technology,” said Ganschar.

Prioritizing data in decision-making at scale

Enthusiasm around AI is not just confined to the C-Suite—it is growing throughout entire organizations. Ken Meyer, Chief Information Officer for Enterprise Functions at Wells Fargo, says employees at every level are clamoring for AI products, with more than 30,000 using Microsoft 365 Copilot since it was rolled out in June 2025. The active usage rate for enabled employees is 92%, demonstrating the value the tool offers to the employees.

It’s really a proof point saying that not only did people want to use these products, but they were waiting for it and excited about it, and what’s really exciting is understanding the usage across the different ways in which they’ve engaged: creating content, doing summarization, and researching. That’s real time saved for our Microsoft 365 licensed users.

—Ken Meyer, Chief Information Officer for Enterprise Functions at Wells Fargo

This kind of data is the foundation of decision-making at the 173-year-old financial institution, particularly when it comes to choosing solutions to put in the hands of employees. Analytics drove Wells Fargo’s 2021 migration to Microsoft Azure as its primary public cloud provider and guided subsequent rollouts of Microsoft 365 and Microsoft SharePoint to enhance productivity and strengthen security. Now AI is increasing efficiency at Wells Fargo, with generative and agent capabilities in GitHub, Microsoft Copilot, and other Microsoft AI solutions equipping employees to more effectively support clients, each other, and the organization.

Organizations across the financial services industry are seeing the opportunities AI can create to unlock greater innovation and business value at an accelerated pace. It plays a critical role in streamlining operations and compliance management—making processes more efficient and secure.

Microsoft understands what it takes to be an enterprise business and do things at scale. When you think about being in a highly regulated industry, being a bank our size, and the commitments that we have to the number of clients that we serve, it’s important and it gives us a lot of confidence.

—Ken Meyer, Chief Information Officer for Enterprise Functions at Wells Fargo

Weaving innovation and intuition into all operations

In retail, as in finance, leaders must keep pace with their customers’ rapid adoption of emerging technologies. From evolving consumer expectations to the rise of omnichannel experiences, agility is key. Levi Strauss & Co., navigating new audiences and sales models, has partnered with Microsoft to stay resilient and innovative, using digital tools to streamline operations, personalize engagement, and scale sustainably in a fast-moving retail landscape.

Retail has always been a story of change. Microsoft is a big part of how we scale for the next 100 years.

—Jason Gowans, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Levi Strauss & Co.

On the heels of a massive cloud migration to Azure, the 172-year-old company is prepared to lead in a new era of agentic AI. The first five years of a seven-year digital transformation at Levi Strauss & Co. saw streamlined workflows, improved analytics and data quality, and more robust security—enabling the company to scale AI-powered innovation across the organization. 

Now, Levi Strauss & Co. and Microsoft are collaborating on AI-powered solutions that enhance employee decision-making, efficiency, and creativity with seamless access to insights. The newest example of this is the development of a new “superagent,” which has the intelligence to intuitively understand which applications and subagents to activate based on a user’s prompt. 

The foundation of the superagent streamlines the process to develop and integrate future agents—creating substantial savings. With AI woven into every experience for employees and fans, by extension, Levi Strauss & Co. is supercharging its trajectory toward becoming a fan-obsessed, direct-to-consumer business. 

We believe in performance, but our core value is also integrity. Whatever we choose to do with AI, it’s going to be grounded in making sure that it’s the right decision for our people, for the company, and for the community. 

—Sheena Kunhiraman, Vice President of People Systems and Analytics at Levi Strauss & Co.

Modernizing a trusted resource to elevate human expertise

Land O’Lakes, one of America’s premier agribusiness and food companies, is a member-owned cooperative with industry-leading operations that span the spectrum from agricultural production to consumer foods. Behind the scenes, the company has executed a sweeping digital transformation: migrating more than two-thirds of its IT environment to Azure, driving widespread adoption of Microsoft Copilot, and fine-tuning its enterprise copilot.

We are not a tech company, but a tech-forward company. Having a true technology partner that helps our digital transformation was the foundation of our partnership with Microsoft. We wanted a bigger bat to swing. Microsoft gives us that.

—Teddy Bekele, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Land O’Lakes

This modern infrastructure is the foundation for AI innovation and serves as the backbone for a new digital assistant called “Oz.” The assistant combines the power of Microsoft AI with Land O’Lakes’ deep agricultural expertise to help farmers make data-informed decisions to maximize yield potential and mitigate risk throughout the growing season.

Land O’Lakes is owned by highly knowledgeable agricultural retailers who act as trusted advisors to farmers. Historically, these retail agronomists have used the Land O’Lakes Crop Protection Guide, an 800-page agronomic resource built on 20 years of data and millions of agriculture-specific data points, to assist farmers. Oz allows retail agronomists to quickly surface critical agricultural information specific to a farm’s unique features and needs in a mobile-friendly format.

The idea has always been to make that agronomist the hero at the farm gate. Instead of flipping through a book, now agronomists can have this deep technical discussion with the AI. So, we go from a good recommendation to a highly customizable recommendation for that farmer.

—Teddy Bekele, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Land O’Lakes

Oz is just the latest example of how Land O’Lakes’ AI transformation has enabled them to bring cutting-edge, AI-powered solutions to the farmers they serve.

Bringing AI into the next Frontier

By thoughtfully integrating AI into many levels and functions of their businesses, centennial companies are demonstrating the ingenuity and resilience that has allowed them to dynamically navigate past moments of disruption for more than 100 years. We’re proud to partner with these Frontier Firms and support their continued transformation.

Explore examples of AI in action from this year’s Microsoft Ignite 2025 conference to envision how Microsoft’s industry-specific solutions can augment your organization’s expertise and experiences with AI.

Use our resources to innovate with AI and start your journey to becoming a Frontier Firm.

¹ Building Indiana Business, The Centennial Secret: How Do Companies Last 100 Years?, October 23, 2020.

The post From legacy to Frontier: How 100-year brands are leading AI innovation appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

That’s why the question isn’t whether to invest in AI—it’s where it will make the biggest difference.  

The best place to start? Identifying the AI business use cases that align to the specific needs and priorities of your organization and your industry—because these use cases are what turn potential into measurable outcomes. 

At Microsoft, we’ve seen that the most successful AI strategies are grounded in industry context. From financial services and retail to manufacturing and healthcare, organizations are applying AI in practical, targeted ways to solve complex challenges and unlock new opportunities.  

Let’s take a closer look at the AI use cases in business that are driving transformation today—through proven industry examples. 

Financial services firms transform operations and experiences with AI 

Banking, insurance, and capital markets firms are under growing pressure to modernize. They’re expected to deliver more personalized service, manage costs, and stay ahead of evolving regulatory demands—while also providing seamless, secure, and relevant experiences across every interaction. 

To meet these expectations, financial institutions are turning to AI business applications to address specific challenges across customer service, compliance, and operations. Key use cases include: 

• Delivering more personalized customer service through AI-powered agents that can resolve issues in real time and scale human support.
• Enabling more relevant and timely engagement by equipping relationship managers with AI tools that provide real-time insights into customer behavior, market signals, and product performance.
• Enhancing compliance and fraud detection with AI models that support transaction monitoring and automated regulatory reporting.
• Reducing operational costs and improving efficiency by using AI to automate document-heavy tasks like loan processing, claims management, and compliance reviews. 

These use cases are already driving results. Aditya Birla Capital, a diversified financial services group in India, adopted AI across its banking, insurance, and asset management businesses. The company increased lead generation through more personalized experiences, boosted contact center productivity by 20%, maintained strong compliance while accelerating digital transformation, and reduced operating costs by over 40% through automation and greater efficiency. 

Retailers drive shopper conversions with AI-powered innovations  

Retailers are navigating rising customer expectations, supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and fierce competition across digital and physical channels. To stay ahead, they must deliver more personalized experiences, operate with greater agility, and equip employees to deliver faster, smarter service.  

AI is helping retailers address these challenges with several high-impact use cases across the value chain: 

• Delivering personalized shopping experiences with AI agents that recommend products in real-time based on customer preferences, behavior, and trend data—boosting conversions, reducing returns, and increasing loyalty.
• Empowering store and service employees with AI business solutions that provide instant answers to store procedures and policies, inventory, product details, and customer insights—increasing productivity and enhancing customer service.
• Improving supply chain visibility by unifying customer, product, and operational data in AI-powered platforms that enhance forecasting, inventory planning, and targeted marketing.
• Strengthening security and resilience through AI-powered threat detection and adaptive protection that defends against credential theft, unauthorized access, and malicious actors.

These AI use cases are delivering measurable results. ASOS, a go-to destination for young fashion lovers, is a standout example of personalization. The retailer uses an AI-powered conversational interface to curate product selections based on shopper preferences and highlight the latest trends—all while maintaining brand voice. This results in increased engagement, higher conversions, and improved customer satisfaction.  

Companies like Carvana, an online used car retailer, and Albert Heijn, a leading grocery store chain in the Netherlands, are also seeing strong results with AI-powered shopping assistants that deliver fast, intuitive, and highly personalized experiences at scale. 

Manufacturers transform the value chain with AI 

Manufacturers are under intense pressure to remain competitive in the face of global supply chain disruptions, rising costs, evolving customer expectations, and the need to meet sustainability goals. To stay ahead, they must improve equipment reliability, increase production efficiency, and accelerate innovation across the entire value chain. 

AI is helping manufacturers address these demands with targeted use cases that drive both operational and strategic impact across the value chain:  

• Reducing unplanned downtime through AI-powered predictive maintenance that monitors equipment health and alerts teams to potential failures before they occur.
• Improving product quality and yield by using AI-powered visual inspection and real-time defect detection to catch issues earlier and reduce waste.
• Accelerating product development with generative design and AI-assisted coding that shortens engineering cycles and reduces time to market.
• Enabling faster decision-making on the factory floor by giving teams access to real-time performance metrics through natural language interfaces and AI agents.  

These AI use cases are already helping leading manufacturers drive results. On the factory floor, Rolls-Royce, a global manufacturer of power systems for aviation and industrial markets, is using AI to monitor engine health and prevent around 400 unplanned maintenance events annually—saving millions and improving overall reliability. The company also applies AI to improve defect detection, increasing machine usage by 30%, and reducing fault resolution time from days to near real time.

Schaeffler, a global automotive and industrial supplier, uses AI agents and real-time data access to enhance reporting, decision-making, and troubleshooting—improving uptime, productivity, and yield across its operations. 

Healthcare organizations improve care and research with AI 

AI is reshaping the entire healthcare ecosystem—including how providers deliver care, how payors manage populations, and how life sciences organizations accelerate innovation. Healthcare leaders are working to improve outcomes, reduce provider burden, expand access, and drive research breakthroughs, all while managing rising costs and maintaining compliance.  

To meet these demands, organizations are turning to AI to support critical use cases across care delivery and innovation: 

• Streamlining clinical workflows with AI assistants that surface critical information in real time and automate tasks—giving providers more time to focus on patient care.
• Enhancing patient engagement with AI tools that help individuals access health information, schedule appointments, and stay connected with providers.
• Supporting clinical decision-making through AI models that improve diagnostics, disease detection, and treatment planning, while enabling more efficient and equitable care models using multimodal AI insights from unified healthcare data.
• Accelerating drug discovery and development by enabling researchers to collaborate more effectively, uncover insights from large volumes of data, and reduce clinical trial timelines.  

These use cases are already driving measurable impact. At Beth Israel Lahey Health (BILH), the medical center’s AI-powered app gives care teams real-time access to thousands of critical care documents—improving efficiency, policy compliance, and the overall quality of care. 

Syneos Health, a global biopharmaceutical solutions provider, is applying AI to improve predictive modeling and accelerate clinical trial site activation time by 10%, helping bring lifesaving therapies to patients faster. 

Let’s put the right AI use cases into action for your industry 

Across financial services, retail, manufacturing, and healthcare, organizations are applying AI through proven use cases that reflect the specific needs and challenges of their industry—and are already seeing measurable impact. 

At Microsoft, we’re building on insights from thousands of customer engagements to help you identify where AI can make the biggest impact for your organization and your industry. 

See more examples of how businesses use AI to drive impact and growth. Explore Microsoft AI Use Cases for Business Leaders: Realize Value with AI.  

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The post AI for business impact starts here: Proven AI use cases by industry appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

Now, the focus is starting to shift. Productivity gains are just the beginning of a broader transformation—one that goes beyond efficiency to reshape industry processes, decision-making, and customer experiences.

ROI of AI

How can industry leaders increase ROI?

Watch the video series

True AI transformation requires an industry perspective

In our conversations with customers, many are asking about the next wave of AI. They’re ready to expand beyond general AI applications and invest in solutions tailored to their specific challenges. While organizations recognize AI’s value and potential, it must address industry-specific needs to deliver the biggest results. 

Take healthcare, for example, where engaging with patients requires sensitivity, data privacy, and personalized care. That’s very different from retail, where personalization is all about tailored shopping recommendations and seamless experiences.

The same contrast exists in manufacturing and transportation. Manufacturers focus on optimizing production lines for efficiency and quality, while fleet operations prioritize logistics, route optimization, and fuel costs.

These differences show why AI adoption is moving beyond general-purpose tools to industry-specific solutions that drive even greater impact. In our recent video series on the Return on Investment (ROI) of AI, we explore this trend, real-world use cases, and how AI is transforming industries like financial services and retail. These insights reflect what I’m seeing in conversations with customers about the changing AI landscape.

Where to invest in AI for maximum impact

Today’s leaders are looking beyond AI for productivity and asking a bigger question: Where should we invest next to drive business growth? The key is to align AI investments with mission-critical priorities.

So, is the AI for industry buzz real, and is it worth the investment? The answer is yes—here’s why:

• Industry-specific AI solutions tackle complex challenges—such as regulatory compliance in financial services, seamless omnichannel shopping experiences in retail, and asset troubleshooting in manufacturing.  At Microsoft, we’ve worked with thousands of customers to identify industry use cases where AI delivers meaningful business results. Building on these insights, we offer customizable AI agents designed to accelerate time to value for our customers.
• Customizable AI agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio help businesses tailor AI to their needs. Agent Builder, a feature within Copilot Studio, simplifies customization with industry-specific knowledge and low-code tools. In addition, our customers have access to a wide range of adapted AI models to accurately and effectively address their unique needs.
• AI models, developed in collaboration with partners, and built for specific industries make adoption easier across every sector and region. These fine-tuned models are trained on industry data to support business-critical use cases.

To see industry-specific AI in action, let’s explore key use cases in financial services, retail, manufacturing, and healthcare.

Driving growth in financial services with AI

Financial services organizations are leading the way in AI adoption, and it’s paying off. They’re realizing a 4.2 times average ROI on generative AI initiatives¹—the highest across industries. Discover how PicPay uses Microsoft AI to answer product and service questions quickly and securely.

Key use cases for AI in finance industry include:

• Banking: AI enhances customer interactions, improves fraud detection, and streamlines meeting preparation.
• Insurance: AI speeds claims processing and resolution, identifies upsell opportunities, and improves customer engagement.
• Capital markets: AI personalizes client presentations, generates predictive insights, and accelerates research.

Watch the video to explore AI business transformation in financial services.

Retailers solve complex challenges with AI

Retailers are realizing a 3.6 times ROI on generative AI initiatives,² and some are tackling customer acquisition, profitability, supply chain reliability, and data complexity. Learn how ASOS, a British online fashion retailer, uses Azure AI Foundry to surprise and delight young fashion lovers with engaging, inspirational experiences.

Key use cases for AI in retail industry include:

• Personalized Shopping Agent engages in natural language conversations, delivering tailored recommendations and assisting with specific requests.
• Store Operations Agent integrates product search, inventory, orders, omnichannel pricing, and incident management into existing applications.
• AI-powered insights help retailers create targeted marketing campaigns that boost engagement and increase sales. See how Microsoft Cloud for Retail connects customers, employees, and data.

Watch the video to see why the retail industry is embracing AI.

How AI powers smarter manufacturing

Manufacturers are achieving a 3.4 times ROI on generative AI initiatives.³ They’re also using AI to speed time to market, streamline application lifecycle management, and simplify manufacturing processes. See how Schneider Electric addresses the company’s most pressing issues by innovating with Azure OpenAI Service.

Key use cases for AI in manufacturing industry include:

• AI-powered generative design accelerates product development by automating design processes, refining models in real time, and freeing teams to focus on manufacturability and compliance.
• AI-assisted coding helps developers write, debug, and optimize code faster, enhancing industrial software development and connected product functionality.
• AI-powered factory insights provide real-time data for root cause analysis, production loss reduction, and asset maintenance, boosting efficiency and safety.

Learn more about Microsoft technology in the manufacturing industry.

AI helps empower the healthcare workforce and enhance patient care

In healthcare, AI is transforming medical data management, personalizing clinician and patient experiences, and helping to improve patient outcomes—delivering a 3.3 times ROI on generative AI initiatives.⁴ See how AI innovation empowers healthcare teams to refocus on the clinician-patient connection at Northwestern Medicine, Overlake Medical Center & Clinics, and Atrium Health.

Key AI use cases for healthcare include:

• AI assistants help streamline clinical documentation, surface information, and automate tasks to improve efficiency, satisfaction, and patient care.
• Advanced healthcare AI models are designed to enhance disease detection, diagnostics, and treatment planning.
• Multimodal AI generates insights from unified healthcare data to identify care gaps faster for early intervention, develop more tailored care plans, improve the accuracy of diagnoses, and allocate hospital resources more effectively.

We’re here to help you drive AI success

Organizations that invest in industry-focused AI applications and stay current with AI industry trends are realizing the greatest ROI with AI. We’re here to help you take action now and position your business for innovation, efficiency, and competitive advantage.

Watch the ROI of AI video series to learn more about AI ROI.

^{1, 2, 3, 4} IDC InfoBrief: sponsored by Microsoft, 2024 Business Opportunity of AI, IDC #US52699124, November 2024.

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