South Korea is rapidly establishing itself as a global force in AI innovation, propelled by a unique blend of industrial strength, technological ambition, and cultural adaptability. From healthcare to renewable energy, Korean organizations are actively deploying AI to reimagine systems, improve efficiency, and create entirely new value.

This nationwide momentum is supported by a growing ecosystem of partners with investments in infrastructure, cloud platforms, and nationwide skilling. Microsoft is expanding access to AI and strengthening Korea’s long-term digital resilience via partnerships with Korean enterprises and institutions, supporting responsible and scalable adoption grounded in transparency, security, and fairness.

At the Microsoft AI Tour in Seoul, Korean companies demonstrated how AI is moving beyond efficiency gains to become a true growth engine—reshaping customer experiences, opening new markets, and driving cross-industry collaboration for a more innovative, inclusive future.

KT accelerates AI transformation through strategic Microsoft partnership

KT, one of South Korea’s largest telecommunications and digital services companies, is driving large-scale AI and cloud. As part of its enterprise transformation, KT has deployed Microsoft 365 Copilot company-wide, using AI to streamline operations and enhance workplace efficiency. In collaboration with Microsoft, their dedicated Center of Excellence (CoE) supports the development of AI-powered systems across teams.

To meet the needs of highly regulated industries, KT is building a secure public cloud based on Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty. This infrastructure will support scalable, compliant AI adoption in sectors such as public services and finance.

Meanwhile, KT is also developing a large language model (LLM) optimized for the Korean language and cultural context. The model will be embedded into KT’s customer service to deliver next-generation AI experiences.

To promote broad, inclusive workforce development, the company is launching a nationwide AI skilling initiative with new training centers that will equip university students, professionals, and the general public with practical AI knowledge. With this multifaceted strategy, KT is advancing its digital capabilities and enabling AI innovation across Korea’s public and private sectors.

LG Electronics launches AI-powered home robot Q9

LG Electronics, a global leader in consumer electronics and smart home technology, is expanding the role of AI in daily life with the introduction of its AI home robot Q9, developed using Azure OpenAI Service. Designed to go beyond basic smart appliance control, Q9 supports functions such as elderly care, childcare, and overall home management.

The robot integrates Microsoft’s voice AI with LG’s own AI agent FURON to allow natural user interactions and adaptive learning. It serves as a central AI hub, connecting with and coordinating smart devices throughout the home to create a responsive living environment tailored to individual needs.

Q9 reflects LG’s vision for the smart home as an active, AI-powered ecosystem that enhances convenience, comfort, and support for daily routines. By combining conversational AI with practical applications, LG is shaping a new category of home technology focused on human-centered design.

Seegene advances molecular diagnostic development with AI system

Seegene, a leading biotechnology and molecular diagnostics company based in South Korea, is transforming how PCR testing kits are developed with its AI-powered Seegene Digitalized Development System (SGDDS).

Originally created by Seegene and further advanced in partnership with Microsoft, SGDDS automates the critical planning and design stages of PCR testing kit development—steps that have traditionally required large teams of experts. By streamlining these processes, the platform enables even non-specialists to participate, accelerating research timelines and improving development efficiency.

Powered by AI and data analytics, SGDDS helps standardize and simplify the development process, allowing Seegene to respond more quickly and precisely to emerging health threats. This capability expands access to accurate diagnostics and strengthens global preparedness for future public health challenges.

Through the integration of AI into its core research and development (R&D) operations, Seegene is building a more agile and scalable approach to healthcare innovation. Its collaboration with Microsoft also supports broader technology-sharing efforts designed to improve diagnostic infrastructure across global markets.

Hanwha Qcells optimizes solar energy with AI and IoT

Hanwha Qcells, a global leader in solar energy solutions, is advancing smart energy management by integrating Azure OpenAI Service and Internet of Things (IoT) technology. In response to the urgent challenges of climate change and resource depletion, the company is using AI to optimize solar power usage and enhance system efficiency across its operations.

By combining real-time data from IoT devices with AI-powered analytics, Hanwha Qcells is developing intelligent energy strategies that improve performance and support sustainability goals. The AI models help forecast energy needs, identify inefficiencies, and adjust power usage dynamically—laying the groundwork for more resilient and eco-friendly infrastructure.

Through its collaboration with Microsoft, Hanwha Qcells is not only improving operational efficiency but also creating scalable solutions for the global energy transition. These innovations support the development of clean energy ecosystems while opening new business opportunities in an increasingly AI-powered market.

Galaxy Corporation uses AI to transform creative enter-tech content

Galaxy Corporation, a South Korea–based AI enter-tech company, is reshaping digital content creation with Sora, its proprietary AI platform powered by Azure OpenAI Service. Designed to support creative professionals, Sora applies generative AI to assist in content development across video, animation, and other entertainment formats.

By embedding AI into the creative workflow, Galaxy Corporation is expanding the role of technology as an active partner in idea generation and production. Sora enables faster prototyping, helps refine concepts, and introduces new possibilities for immersive storytelling—bringing imagination to life with greater speed and scale.

Galaxy Corporation plans to continue expanding its AI offerings to meet the growing demand for innovation in entertainment. Galaxy Corporation is deeply committed to exploring the possibilities of the enter-tech creative vision of artists in this era of rapid innovation. By using AI to overcome creative limitations and redefine the standards of content development, the company is fostering a dynamic synergy between entertainment and AI technology. By positioning AI as a core creative tool, this approach not only reimagines experiences entirely but also delivers transformative content value to audiences, paving the way for a more meaningful, dynamic, and forward-thinking future in content creation.

Amorepacific simplifies complex beauty decision with AI

Amorepacific, South Korea’s largest beauty and cosmetics company, is known for its trend-setting brands and deep understanding of consumer needs. In the fast-moving K-beauty market—where skincare routines are complex and trends shift quickly—delivering timely, personalized guidance has become both a challenge and a competitive advantage.

To meet that need, Amorepacific is developing the AI Beauty Counselor (AIBC), a generative AI-powered app built on Microsoft’s Azure AI stack. The solution analyzes user photos to assess facial features and skin tone, then offers makeup recommendations informed by data from professional artists. To deepen personalization, users can chat with AIBC to share their skin care concerns, ask questions, and report on their post-sale experience.

By integrating AI into the consultation experience, Amorepacific is helping customers navigate beauty choices with confidence while staying ahead of evolving trends.

AI for everyone in South Korea

What sets South Korea apart in the global AI landscape is not only its rapid adoption of new technologies, but its intentional, people-centered approach to applying them. Korean enterprises are using AI to address real-world challenges, and these innovations are rooted in Korea’s industrial expertise and cultural context, with AI deployed to create practical value across sectors.

Aligned with the theme “AI for Everyone,” South Korea’s AI transformation reflects a belief that this technology should be accessible, inclusive, and impactful across all sectors of society. Microsoft supports this vision through close collaboration with Korean institutions and businesses—advancing skilling initiatives, education programs, and trusted cloud infrastructure to help turn bold ideas into lasting results.

Meanwhile, as AI becomes central to how organizations compete and collaborate, trust is essential. Microsoft’s focus on ethical development, responsible deployment, and secure systems enables Korean companies to build AI solutions that are not only powerful but grounded in both innovation and social responsibility.

South Korea’s AI momentum is accelerating, crossing boundaries between industries, strengthening competitiveness, and opening space for new partnerships. With the right foundation and a clear commitment to inclusion, responsibility, and innovation, the country is showing what a truly accessible, future-ready AI ecosystem can look like—for everyone.

Find the resources to support your AI journey

• Explore Microsoft’s AI solutions.
• Advance your AI transformation with AI business resources.

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The 2025 Work Trend Index Annual Report is designed to prepare leaders and employees for this shift. As in previous years, it draws on a large global survey, Microsoft 365 telemetry and LinkedIn hiring and labor trends. New this year are insights from AI-native startups, economists, scientists and academics — all pointing to a seismic shift already underway. In fact, 82% of leaders say this is a pivotal year to rethink core aspects of strategy and operations.

The data reveals the emergence of a new kind of organization: the Frontier Firm — built around intelligence on tap, human-agent teams and a new role for everyone: agent boss. While the shift ahead is profound, human ambition, creativity and ingenuity will continue to create new economic value and opportunity. In fact, 71% of workers at these firms say their company is thriving, compared to just 37% globally.

You can buy intelligence on tap

Imagine if you knew, before the internet took off, just how much it would reshape business. That’s where we are with AI. Intelligence is no longer bound by headcount or expertise. It’s an essential durable good: abundant, affordable and scalable on-demand. As economic and shareholder pressures grow, this on-demand intelligence offers a new lever for growth — one that can close the growing gap between business demands and human capacity. While 53% of leaders say productivity must increase, 80% of the global workforce reports lacking the time or energy to do their job. And on average, employees are interrupted by a meeting, email or ping every 2 minutes. To bridge this Capacity Gap, 82% of leaders expect to use digital labor to expand their workforce in the next 12 to 18 months.

Digital labor will spur the reinvention of even the most established firms — and the birth of new companies we haven’t even thought of yet. On LinkedIn, top AI startups are hiring at 2X the rate of Big Tech. Much of that talent is flowing out of Big Tech and staying in the startup world, pointing to a deeper shift where innovation — and opportunity — are rising. As incumbents adapt and challengers scale, like we saw in the .com boom, the rules of talent and competition are being rewritten in real time.

Human-agent teams will upend the org chart

As AI continues to democratize expertise, we’re seeing a move from rigid org charts to more fluid, outcome-driven Work Charts. These structures flex with the needs of the business, drawing on the right mix of humans and agents to get the job done. While every function will evolve at a different pace and scale, 46% of leaders say their organization is using agents to fully automate workstreams or business processes — with customer service, marketing and product development as the top AI investment priorities.

To maximize the impact of these human-agent teams, organizations need a new metric: the human-agent ratio. Leaders must ask two critical questions: How many agents are needed for which roles and tasks? And how many humans are needed to guide them? Getting that ratio right will be critical — and task-specific. Organizations will need to consider if there are times when human and digital labor outperform AI alone, when customers prefer a human touch or when society expects people to be responsible for the consequences — like a high-stakes product or finance decision. Whether it’s a customer conversation, a strategic decision or a product launch, knowing how to staff the right mix of humans and agents will define how work gets done — and how success is measured.

Every employee becomes an agent boss

As agents increasingly join the workforce, we’ll see the rise of the agent boss: someone who builds, delegates to and manages agents to amplify their impact and take control of their career in the age of AI. From the boardroom to the frontline, every worker will need to think like the CEO of an agent-powered startup. In fact, leaders expect their teams will be training (41%) and managing (36%) agents within five years.

For those ready to lean in, AI will be a career accelerator — but leaders are ahead. We measured the agent boss mindset across seven indicators — from regular use and trust to career impact. Leaders outpace employees on every measure: 67% are familiar with agents (vs. 40% of employees) and 79% believe AI will accelerate their careers (vs. 67%). But this shift won’t stop at the top. As agents become embedded into daily work, roles across every level and function will evolve — along with the broader workforce. While 33% of leaders are considering headcount reductions, 78% are considering hiring for new AI roles. And 83% say AI will enable employees to take on more complex and strategic work earlier in their careers.

This shift is multifaceted — every industry and role will evolve differently as the technology diffuses across business and society. Just as the internet era created billions of new knowledge jobs — from social media managers to UX designers — the AI era is already giving rise to new roles, with many more to come. Preparing for what’s next is no longer optional. Employees must build AI skills and companies must support them with the right tools and training. This moment calls for honest conversations, intentional communication and real investment in reskilling. The companies that invest now won’t just keep up — they’ll shape what comes next.

Copilot is the new UI for AI

Today we’re announcing the Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 Spring release — designed to power the next era of human–agent collaboration. The Microsoft 365 Copilot app is now your window into the world of agents, with new capabilities for this next phase — driven by more advanced models, adaptive memory and reasoning agents that work alongside you. Updates include:

• Researcher and Analyst agents powered by OpenAI’s deep reasoning models rolling out to customers through the Frontier program — and with our new Agent Store, you can easily find, pin and use agents — from partners like Jira, Monday.com and Miro — or your own custom agents.
• Create brings OpenAI’s GPT-4o AI image generator to work, unlocking design and content creation skills for everyone. Easily modify or customize brand images or generate AI images aligned to your company’s approved brand guidelines and create everything from marketing copy and social assets to newsletter banners, videos and more.

• Copilot Notebooks transforms your notes, documents and data into immediate insights and actions. By grounding Copilot in a notebook containing specific chats, files, meeting recordings and more, it can focus on the most relevant information — all while constantly scanning your source material to update in real time as your data evolves. Notebooks can even create an audio overview of your content with two hosts that walk you through the key points — a fun, flexible way to stay informed.
• Copilot Search is a new AI-powered enterprise search that helps you find what you need instantly with rich, context-aware answers from across your organization’s apps and data. It connects to first- and third-party apps — from ServiceNow to Google Drive, Slack, Confluence, Jira and more — so you get fast, relevant results at work no matter where your data lives.
• New capabilities in the Copilot Control System empower IT pros to enable, disable or block agents for specific users or groups — to help ensure the right agents are being used by the right people.

2025 will be remembered as the year the Frontier Firm was born — the moment companies moved beyond experimenting with AI and began rebuilding around it. Like the digital native companies of a generation ago, they understand the power of pairing irreplaceable human insight with AI and agents to unlock outsized value. We’re giving customers the insight to anticipate what’s next — and the technology to help shape it.

Read the Annual Work Trend Index on WorkLab and visit the Microsoft 365 Blog to learn more about our product announcements. Learn what this year’s Work Trend Index findings mean for small and medium-sized businesses.

For all the blogs, videos and assets related to today’s announcement, please visit our microsite.

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As AI becomes more deeply embedded in workflows, having a secure foundation from the start is essential for adapting to new innovations with confidence and ease. New regulations like the European Union AI Act demand greater transparency and accountability, while threats like shadow AI and adversarial attacks highlight the urgent need for robust governance. 

Getting Started with AI Applications

Microsoft Guide for Securing the AI-Powered Enterprise

Read today

To help organizations navigate these challenges, Microsoft has released the Microsoft Guide for Securing the AI-Powered Enterprise Issue 1: Getting Started with AI Applications—the first in a series of deep dives into AI security, compliance, and governance. This guide lays the groundwork for securing the AI tools teams are already exploring and provides guidance on how to manage the risks associated with AI. It also dives into some unique risks with AI agents and how to manage these. Here’s a look at the key themes and takeaways. 

Securing AI applications: Understanding the risks and how to address them 

AI adoption is accelerating, bringing remarkable opportunities but also a growing set of security risks. As AI becomes more embedded in business decision-making, challenges such as data leakage, emerging cyber threats, and evolving and new regulations demand immediate attention. Let’s explore the top risks and how organizations can address them. 

Data leakage and oversharing: Keeping AI from becoming a liability 

AI thrives on data. But without guardrails, that dependence can introduce security challenges. One major concern is shadow AI—when employees use unapproved AI tools without oversight. It’s easy to see why this happens: teams eager to boost efficiency turn to freely available AI-powered chatbots or automation tools, often unaware of the security risks. In fact, 80% of business leaders worry that sensitive data could slip through the cracks due to unchecked AI use.² 

Take a marketing team using an AI-powered content generator. If they connect it to unsecured sources, they might inadvertently expose proprietary strategies or customer data. Similarly, AI models often inherit the same permissions as their users, meaning an over-permissioned employee could unknowingly expose critical company data to an AI system. Without proper data lifecycle management, outdated or unnecessary data can linger in AI models, creating long-term security exposure. 

Addressing the risk

• Implement clear AI usage policies so employees stick to vetted, secure tools.
• Allow AI’s to access data only based on the user’s credentials and use role-based access controls (RBAC) to manage that data access.
• If an AI does need to use its own credentials to access resources, only grant AI access to people who should have access to those resources.
• Automate data retention policies to prevent sensitive information from persisting beyond its intended use.

Emerging threats: The expanding landscape of AI vulnerabilities 

As AI evolves, so do the threats against it. According to Gartner® Peer Community, among 332 participants, a staggering 88% of organizations are concerned about the rising risk of indirect prompt injection attacks,³ with attackers developing new ways to exploit vulnerabilities. One of the most pressing concerns is prompt injection attacks—where malicious actors embed hidden instructions in input data to manipulate AI behavior. A cleverly worded query, for example, could trick an AI-powered chatbot into revealing confidential information. 

Beyond direct attacks, AI systems themselves can introduce security risks. AI models are prone to hallucinations (generating false or misleading information), unexpected preferences (amplifying unfair decision-making patterns), omissions (leaving out critical details), misinterpretation of data, and poor-quality or malicious input leading to flawed results. A hiring tool, for example, might favor certain candidates based on biased historical data rather than making fair, informed decisions. 

Addressing the risk

• Validate and sanitize input data before AI processes it to prevent manipulation.
• Limit AI’s access to sensitive information and implement identity verification.
• Design (and secure) the end-to-end (E2E) business process, not the AI component.
• Secure the AI component by imagining replacing it with a new hire fresh out of school. What would you do to make your process robust against it making mistakes?
• Use robust monitoring, validation, and oversight to ensure AI operates securely and responsibly.
• Leverage commercial AI tools with built-in safeguards like bias detection, input sanitization, and access controls to reduce risks while supporting business goals.

Compliance challenges: Navigating the complex AI regulatory landscape

Beyond security, compliance is another major hurdle in AI adoption. Over half of business leaders (52%) admit they’re unsure how to navigate today’s rapidly evolving AI regulations.² Frameworks like the European Union AI Act, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) are rapidly evolving, making compliance a moving target. Organizations must establish clear governance and documentation to track AI usage, decision-making, and data handling, reducing the risk of non-compliance. Digital resilience laws like DORA require ongoing risk assessments to ensure operational continuity, while GDPR mandates transparency in AI-powered decisions like credit scoring and job screening. Misclassifying AI risk levels—such as underestimating the impact of a diagnostic AI tool—can lead to regulatory violations. Staying ahead requires structured risk assessments, automated compliance monitoring, and continuous policy adaptation to align with changing regulations. 

Addressing the risk

• Align AI governance with evolving regulations like DORA through risk assessment, testing, and monitoring.
• Keep detailed AI records to ensure compliance and responsible use.
• Use AI-powered tools to monitor compliance with GDPR and HIPAA, reducing risks like data drift and unauthorized access.
• Audit AI decisions to ensure fairness, transparency, and regulatory compliance.
• Classify AI risks clearly and stay updated on evolving regulations to maintain compliance. 

The next frontier: Unique challenges in securing agentic AI 

The pace of AI growth is staggering, with AI capabilities doubling every six months. Organizations are rapidly adopting more autonomous, adaptable, and deeply integrated systems to tackle complex challenges. 

One of the most significant developments in this shift is agentic AI—a new class of AI systems designed to act independently, make real-time decisions, and collaborate with other AI agents to achieve complex objectives. These advancements have the potential to revolutionize industries, from optimizing energy grids to managing fleets of autonomous vehicles.  

But with greater autonomy comes greater risk. Overreliance on AI outputs, cyber vulnerabilities, and reliability concerns all need to be addressed. As these systems integrate deeper into operations, strong security, oversight, and accountability will be essential. 

Building a secure AI future: A responsible AI adoption playbook 

AI’s transformative power comes with inherent risks, requiring a proactive, strategic approach to security. A Zero Trust framework ensures that every AI interaction is authenticated, authorized, and continuously monitored. But security isn’t something that happens overnight—it requires a phased approach. 

Microsoft’s AI adoption guidance, part of the Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure, provides a structured path for organizations to follow and is clearly outlined in the Microsoft Guide for Securing the AI Powered Enterprise Issue 1: Getting Started with AI Applications. This guide offers a starting point for embracing the cultural shift needed to secure AI with clarity and confidence.  

Cross-team collaboration, employee training, and transparent governance are just as essential as firewalls and encryption. By embedding security at every stage, breaking down silos, and fostering trust, organizations can confidently navigate the AI landscape, ensuring both innovation and resilience in a rapidly evolving world. 

Learn more 

• Guide for Securing the AI Powered Enterprise Issue 1: Getting Started with AI Applications.
• Get the playbook: AI Adoption Guidance.
• Read the e-book: Grow Your Business with AI You Can Trust.

¹Microsoft internal research, February 2025 

² ISMG, First Annual Generative AI Study: Business Rewards vs. Security Risks.

³ Gartner Peer Community Poll: If your org’s using any virtual assistants with AI capabilities, are you concerned about indirect prompt injection attacks?

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. 

The post Securing AI: Navigating risks and compliance for the future appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

One of the highlights of my career has always been connecting with customers and partners across industries to learn how they are using technology to drive their businesses forward. In the past 30 years, we’ve seen four major platform shifts, from client server to internet and the web to mobile and cloud to now—the next major platform shift to AI.

As today’s platform shift to AI continues to gain m omentum, Microsoft is working to understand just how organizations can drive lasting business value. We recently commissioned a study with IDC, The Business Opportunity of AI, to uncover new insights around business value and help guide organizations on their journey of AI transformation. The study found that for every $1 organizations invest in generative AI, they’re realizing an average of 3.7x return—and uncovered insights about the future potential of AI to reshape business processes and drive change across industries. 

Today, more than 85% of the Fortune 500 are using Microsoft AI solutions to shape their future. In working with organizations large and small, across every industry and geography, we’ve seen that most transformation initiatives are designed to achieve one of four business outcomes:

1. Enriching employee experiences: Using AI to streamline or automate repetitive, mundane tasks can allow your employees to dive into more complex, creative, and ultimately more valuable work.
2. Reinventing customer engagement: AI can create more personalized, tailored customer experiences, delighting your target audiences while lightening the load for employees.
3. Reshaping business processes: Virtually any business process can be reimagined with AI, from marketing to supply chain operations to finance, and AI is even allowing organizations to go beyond process optimization and discover exciting new growth opportunities.
4. Bending the curve on innovation: AI is revolutionizing innovation by speeding up creative processes and product development, reducing the time to market and allowing companies to differentiate in an often crowded field.

In this blog, we’ve collected more than 200 of our favorite real-life examples of how organizations are embracing Microsoft’s proven AI capabilities to drive impact and shape today’s platform shift to AI. We hope you find an example or two that can inspire your own transformation journey.

IDC InfoBrief: sponsored by Microsoft, 2024 Business Opportunity of AI, IDC# US52699124, November 2024 

Enriching employee experiences

Generative AI is truly transforming employee productivity and well-being. Our customers tell us that by automating repetitive, mundane tasks, employees are freed up to dive into more complex and creative work. This shift not only makes the work environment more stimulating but also boosts job satisfaction. It sparks innovation, provides actionable insights for better decision-making, and supports personalized training and development opportunities, all contributing to a better work-life balance. Customers around the world have reported significant improvements in employee productivity with these AI solutions:

1. Access Holdings Plc adopted Microsoft 365 Copilot, integrating generative AI into daily tools and, as a result, writing code now takes two hours instead of eight, chatbots launch in 10 days instead of three months, and presentations are prepared in 45 minutes instead of six hours.
2. Adobe is connecting Adobe Experience Cloud workflows and insights with Microsoft 365 Copilot to deliver generative AI-powered capabilities that enable marketers to increase collaboration, efficiency, and creativity.
3. Amadeus empowers its teams to focus their time and skills on value-added tasks with Microsoft 365 Copilot by summarizing email threads, chat, or transcripts, and summing up information from diverse sources.
4. ANZ has invested in Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Copilot in Microsoft Edge to boost productivity and innovation across its workforce. 
5. Asahi Europe & International (AEI) has adopted Microsoft 365 Copilot, saving employees potentially 15% of time previously spent on administrative tasks.
6. AXA developed AXA Secure GPT, a platform powered by Azure OpenAI Service that empowers employees to leverage the power of generative AI while targeting the highest level of data safety and responsible use of the tool.
7. Axon Enterprise developed a new AI tool with Azure OpenAI Service called Draft One, resulting in an 82% decrease in time spent on reports, which freed up officers to engage more with their community.
8. Aztec Group enhanced productivity and client experience by trialing Microsoft 365 Copilot with 300 staff, uncovering “unlimited” use cases and plans for a wider rollout.
9. Bader Sultan & Bros. Co. W.L.L implemented Microsoft 365 Copilot to enhance employee productivity and speed up customer response times.
10. Bancolombia is using GitHub Copilot to empower its technical team, achieving a 30% increase in code generation, boosting automated application changes to an average of 18,000 per year, with a rate of 42 productive daily deployments. 
11. BaptistCare Community Services is using Microsoft 365 Copilot to save employees time as they navigate workforce shortage challenges allowing them to focus more on the people they care for.
12. Barnsley Council was recognized as “Double Council of the Year in 2023” for its implementation of Microsoft 365 Copilot, which modernized operations and reduced administrative tasks, leading to improved job satisfaction and increased creativity.
13. BlackRock purchased more than 24,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses spanning all employees, functions, and locations, helping improve the Copilot experience, including co-developing new features and functions.
14. British Heart Foundation is testing Microsoft 365 Copilot and in its initial test, users estimate that Microsoft 365 Copilot could save them up to 30 minutes per day.
15. Buckinghamshire Council deployed Microsoft 365 Copilot with staff reporting productivity improvements, quality enhancements, and time savings which are enabling the different teams to do more with less. 
16. Campari Group adopted Microsoft 365 Copilot to help employees integrate it into their workflow, resulting in time savings of about two hours a week from the support of routine activities such as email management, meeting preparation, content creation, and skill acquisition.
17. Capita is using GitHub Copilot for productivity improvements as well as improvements in developer satisfaction, recruitment, and retention.
18. CDW used Microsoft 365 Copilot to improve work quality for 88% of users, enabling 77% to complete tasks faster, and increasing productivity for 85% of users.
19. Chi Mei Medical Center is lightening workloads for doctors, nurses, and pharmacists with a generative AI assistant built on Azure OpenAI Service. 
20. E.ON is focused on Germany’s energy transition, leveraging Microsoft 365 Copilot to manage the complex grid in real-time, increasing productivity and efficiency for its workforce.
21. Enerijisa Üretim has adopted Microsoft 365 Copilot to streamline meeting summaries, reformat documents, and compile reports, enabling employees to concentrate on more strategic and fulfilling activities instead of spending six hours in meetings.
22. EPAM is deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot to consolidate information and generate content and documents. 
23. Farm Credit Canada implemented Microsoft 365 Copilot which resulted in time savings on routine tasks for 78% of users, with 30% saving 30 to 60 minutes per week and 35% saving over an hour per week, allowing employees to focus on more value-added tasks.
24. Finastra used Microsoft 365 Copilot to automate tasks, enhance content creation, improve analytics, and personalize customer interactions, with employees citing a 20% to 50% time savings.
25. Four Agency Worldwide increased employee productivity using Microsoft 365 Copilot to generate ideas for creative work and support administrative-heavy processes, data analysis, and report generation, allowing staff to focus on outreach and less time doing paperwork.
26. Goodwill of Orange County developed an AI-powered app using Azure AI capabilities to help more people, including those with developmental, intellectual, and physical disabilities, work in unfilled e-commerce positions.
27. Honeywell employees are saving 92 minutes per week—that’s 74 hours a year! Disclaimer: Statistics are from an internal Honeywell survey of 5,000 employees where 611 employees responded.
28. Insight employees using Copilot are seeing four hours of productivity gained per week from data summarization and content creation.
29. Joos uses Microsoft 365 Copilot to grow its brand with worldwide collaboration by streamlining meetings, optimizing presentations, and improving communications.
30. Kantar is harnessing the power of Microsoft 365 Copilot by reducing costly, time-consuming IT processes and boosting productivity for employees.
31. KPMG Australia is using Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search, and Microsoft 365 Copilot to perform advanced text analysis of dozens of client source documents to identify full or partial compliance, or noncompliance, in a fraction of the time required for manual assessments.
32. LGT is launching Microsoft Copilot LGT to improve efficiency, showing users save an average of an hour a week even in the pilot phase. 
33. Lotte Hotels & Resorts has been creating a new work culture that allows employees to work more efficiently and focus on the nature of the work by adopting Microsoft Power Platform for automation.
34. MAIRE is leveraging Microsoft 365 Copilot to automate routine tasks, saving more than 800 working hours per month, freeing up engineers and professionals for strategic activities while supporting MAIRE’s green energy transition by reducing their carbon footprint.
35. McDonald’s China chose Microsoft Azure AI, GitHub Copilot, and Azure AI Search to transform its operations, resulting in a significant increase in AI adoption, consumption, and retention from 2,000 to 30,000 employee transactions monthly.
36. McKnight Foundation adopted Microsoft 365 Copilot for all staff, saving time, increasing productivity, and freeing space to focus on strategic priorities.
37. Morula Health is using Microsoft 365 Copilot to enhance productivity, streamline medical writing tasks, and ensure data security, ultimately improving efficiency and client satisfaction. 
38. Motor Oil Group is achieving remarkable efficiency gains by integrating Microsoft 365 Copilot into its workflows, with staff spending minutes on tasks that used to take weeks. 
39. Nagel-Group uses Azure OpenAI Service to help employees quickly access information which saves time, creates efficiency and transparency, and leads to higher-quality answers overall.
40. National Australia Bank is leveraging Microsoft 365 Copilot for daily productivity and data analysis and insights and Microsoft Security Copilot to quickly analyze millions of security event logs and allow engineers to focus on more important areas.
41. NFL Players Association integrated Azure AI Services and Azure App Service into their video review process, reducing review time by up to 73%, significantly increasing efficiency and enhancing player safety through consistent rule enforcement.
42. O2 Czech Republic boosts productivity and streamlines meetings with Microsoft 365 Copilot, revolutionizing how information is shared and making automation a part of daily work.
43. Onepoint developed a secure conversational agent based on Azure OpenAI Service, which delivers productivity gains of between 10% and 15% across all business lines.
44. Orange Group has more than 40 use cases with Azure OpenAI Service and GitHub Copilot across business functions to support employees in their day-to-day tasks, enabling them to concentrate on higher value-added activities.
45. Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust implemented Microsoft 365 Copilot to improve staff report productivity by saving one to two hours a week, or simple formatting tasks down to a matter of seconds, enabling more resources to deliver frontline services.
46. PA Consulting transformed its sales operations with Microsoft 365 Copilot, so its people can invest more time on the activities that have the biggest impact for clients and maximize the strategic value they provide. 
47. Petrobras used Azure OpenAI Service to create ChatPetrobras, which is streamlining workflows, reducing manual tasks, and summarizing reports for its 110,000 employees.
48. Petrochemical Industries Company automates work processes to save time with Microsoft 365 Copilot from weeks to days, hours to seconds.
49. PKSHA Technology is optimizing their time on critical work by increasing efficiency in meeting preparations, data analytics, and ideation with the help of Microsoft 365 Copilot.
50. Providence has collaborated with Nuance and Microsoft to accelerate development and adoption of generative AI-powered applications, helping improve care quality and access, and reduce physician’s administrative workloads. 
51. RTI International adopted Microsoft 365 Copilot to gain productivity wherever possible, allowing staff to focus on their areas of expertise, delivering even better science-backed solutions for clients.
52. Sandvik Coromant is using Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales to drive efficiency and accuracy, shaving at least one minute off each transaction, allowing sellers and account managers to focus their expertise on responding to customers’ needs with analysis, creativity, and adaptability.
53. Sasfin Bank built a solution on Microsoft Azure that centralized 20,000 documents to analyze contract clauses and provide real-time snapshots, moving guesswork into data-driven decision-making.
54. Scottish Water implemented Microsoft 365 Copilot reducing mundane tasks to a minimum, and thus freeing up time for employees to work on the more meaningful tasks.
55. Shriners Children’s developed an AI platform allowing clinicians to easily and securely navigate patient data in a singular location, enhancing patient care, and improving the efficiency of their healthcare services. 
56. Siemens is leveraging Azure OpenAI Service to improve efficiency, cut downtime, and address labor shortages.
57. Softchoice employees are experiencing firsthand how Microsoft 365 Copilot can transform daily workflows, realizing productivity gains of 97% reduction in time spent summarizing technical meetings and up to 70% less time spent on content creation.
58. Syensqo utilized Azure OpenAI Service to develop a custom AI chatbot in three months, which improved their internal data management, decision-making, and overall efficiency.
59. Teladoc Health uses Microsoft 365 Copilot to revolutionize its telehealth operations, automating routine tasks, boosting efficiency, and increasing productivity.
60. Telstra developed two cutting-edge generative AI tools based on Azure OpenAI Service: 90% of employees are using the One Sentence Summary tool which resulted in 20% less follow-up customer contact and 84% of customer service agents using the Ask Telstra solution.
61. Topsoe achieved 85% AI adoption among office employees in seven months, significantly enhancing productivity and business processes.
62. Torfaen County Borough Council utilized Microsoft 365 Copilot to streamline back-office processes, resulting in significant time savings and enhanced productivity for both business and children’s services teams, with further rollouts planned.
63. Trace3 leveraged Microsoft 365 Copilot to streamline and enhance processes across the business and with clients, such as reducing the time it takes human resources (HR) recruiting managers to respond to applicants within a couple of days instead of several weeks.
64. Unilever is reinventing their marketing process with Copilot, saving time on briefing tasks, automatically pulling in relevant market data, content and insights to accelerate campaign launches. 
65. Uniper SE implemented Microsoft 365 Copilot to reduce time spent on manual and repetitive tasks, and help workers focus on more pressing work, such as developing enhanced solutions to speed up the energy transition.
66. Unum Group built a custom AI application to search 1.3 terabytes of data with 95% accuracy using Azure OpenAI Service. 
67. Virgin Atlantic adopted Microsoft 365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot and is seeing real business benefits, including productivity improvements, enabling new ways of working.
68. Visier built a generative AI assistant that leverages Azure AI and Azure OpenAI Services to deliver workforce analytics and actionable insights for more than 50,000 customers.
69. Virtual Dental Care developed an AI application Smart Scan that leverages Azure to reduce paperwork for mobile dental clinics in schools by 75% and frees dentists to devote more time to patient care.
70. Zakladni Skola As Hlavkova adopted Microsoft 365 Copilot and saw a 60% improvement in handling administrative documents, decreased lesson preparation from hours to few minutes, increased inclusivity, and enhanced communication with students and parents.

Reinventing customer engagement

We’ve seen great examples of how generative AI can automate content creation, ensuring there’s fresh and engaging materials ready to go. It personalizes customer experiences by crunching the numbers and boosting conversion rates. It makes operations smoother, helping teams launch campaigns faster. Plus, it drives innovation, crafting experiences that delight customers while lightening the load for staff. Embracing generative AI is key for organizations wanting to reinvent customer engagements, stay ahead of the game, and drive both innovation and efficiency.

71. Absa has adopted Microsoft Copilot to streamline various business processes, saving several hours on administrative tasks each day.
72. Adobe leverages Azure to streamline the customer experience, harnessing the power of the connected cloud services and creating a synergy that drives AI transformation across industries.
73. Acentra Health developed Medscribe, a web application that uses Azure OpenAI Service to generate draft letters in a secure, HIPAA-compliant enclave that responds to customer appeals for healthcare services within 24 hours, reducing the time spent on each appeal letter by 50%.
74. Alaska Airlines is using Azure, Microsoft Defender, and GitHub to ensure its passengers have a seamless journey from ticket purchase to baggage pickup and started leveraging Azure OpenAI Service to unlock more business value for its customer care and contact centers.
75. Ally Financial is using Azure OpenAI Service to reduce manual tasks for its customer service associates, freeing up time for them to engage with customers. 
76. BMW Group optimizes the customer experience connecting 13 million active users to their vehicles with the MyBMW app on Azure, which supports 450 million daily requests and 3.2 terabyte (TB) data processing.
77. Boyner has tripled its e-commerce performance using Azure, seeing a rise in customer satisfaction, engagement, conversion rate, and revenue.
78. Bradesco Bank integrated Azure to its virtual assistant, BIA, resulting in reduced response time from days to hours, improving operational efficiency and client satisfaction.
79. Capgemini Mexico integrated GitHub Copilot to support scalable AI implementations which has led to improved customer experiences and increased efficiency.
80. Capitec Bank uses Azure OpenAI Service and Microsoft 365 Copilot, enabling their AI-powered chatbot to assist customer service consultants in accessing product information more efficiently, saving significant time for employees each week.
81. Cdiscount is leveraging GitHub Copilot and Azure OpenAI Service to enhance developer efficiency, optimize product sheet categorization, and improve customer satisfaction.
82. Cemex used Azure OpenAI Service to launch Technical Xpert, an AI tool used by sales agents to provide instant access to comprehensive product and customer solution information, significantly reducing search time by 80%. 
83. Chanel elevated their client experience and improved employee efficiency by leveraging Microsoft Fabric and Azure OpenAI Service for real-time translations and quality monitoring.
84. City of Burlington created two AI-powered solutions: MyFiles system using Microsoft Power Platform for building permits, and CoBy, an around-the-clock customer support assistant using Microsoft Copilot Studio.
85. City of Madrid created an AI virtual assistant with Azure OpenAI Service offering tourists accurate, real-time information and personalized responses in more than 95 languages.
86. Cognizant is making performance management more effective and meaningful with Azure Machine Learning to help clients across industries envision, build, and run innovative digital enterprises.
87. Coles Group has leveraged Azure to enhance its digital presence and improve customer engagement, rolling out new applications to its stores six times faster without disrupting workloads.
88. Commercial Bank of Dubai used Azure to upgrade its application infrastructure, improving transaction security and speed so individual customers can now open an account and start banking in about two minutes.
89. Dubai Electricity and Water Authority has significantly improved productivity and customer satisfaction by integrating multiple Microsoft AI solutions, reducing task completion time from days to hours and achieving a 98% customer happiness rate.
90. Elcome uses Microsoft 365 Copilot to improve the customer experience, reducing response times from 24 hours to eight hours.
91. elunic developed shopfloor.GPT based on Azure OpenAI Service, leading to increased productivity for customers, saving 15 minutes per request.
92. Estée Lauder Companies is leveraging Azure OpenAI Service to create closer consumer connections and increase speed to market with local relevancy.
93. First National Bank (FNB) is using Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales to help bankers create professional, thoughtful emails in 13 native South African languages to enhance customer interactions, streamline communications, and reinforce its commitment to innovation and customer service. 
94. Flora Food Group migrated to Microsoft Fabric to offer more detailed and timely insights to its customers, enhancing service delivery and customer satisfaction.
95. Groupama deployed a virtual assistant using Azure OpenAI Service that delivers reliable, verified and verifiable information, and boasts an 80% success rate.
96. International University of Applied Sciences (IU) adopted Azure OpenAI Service to revolutionize learning with a personalized study assistant that can interact with each student just like a human would.
97. Investec is using Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales to enhance the bank’s client relationships, estimating saving approximately 200 hours annually ultimately boosting sales productivity and delivering personalized, seamless customer experience. 
98. Linum is using Azure to train their text-to-video models faster and more efficiently without losing performance or wasting resources.
99. Lumen Technologies is redefining customer success and sales processes through the strategic use of Microsoft 365 Copilot, enhancing productivity, sales, and customer service in the global communications sector.
100. McKinsey & Company is creating an agent to reduce client onboarding process by reducing lead time by 90% and administrative work by 30%.
101. Meesho leveraged Azure OpenAI Service and GitHub Copilot to enhance customer service and software development, resulting in a 25% increase in customer satisfaction scores and 40% more traffic on customer service queries.
102. Milpark Education integrated Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Studio and in just four months, improved efficiency and accuracy of student support, decreasing the average resolution time by 50% and escalations by more than 30%.
103. NC Fusion chose a comprehensive Microsoft solution to make marketing engagement activities easier and accurately target the best audience segments.
104. Medgate, a telehealth subsidiary of Otto Group, developed a medical Copilot powered by Azure OpenAI Service that summarizes consultations, supports triage, and provides real-time translations. 
105. Pacific Gas & Electric built a chatbot using Microsoft Copilot Studio that saves $1.1 million annually on helpdesk support. 
106. Pockyt is using GitHub Copilot and anticipates a 500% increase in productivity in the medium to long term as they continue adapting AI and fine-tuning their software development life cycle.
107. South Australia Department for Education launched an AI-powered educational chatbot to help safeguard students from harmful content while introducing responsible AI to the classrooms.
108. Sync Labs is using Azure to create AI-powered solutions that have led to a remarkable 30x increase in revenue and a 100x expansion of their customer base.
109. Syndigo is using Azure to accelerate digital commerce for its customers by more than 40% and expand its customer base.
110. Telkomsel created a virtual assistant with Azure OpenAI Service, resulting in a leap in customer self-service interactions from 19% to 45%, and call volume dropped from 8,000 calls to 1,000 calls a day.
111. Torrens University chose to use Azure OpenAI to uplift its online learning experience, saving 20,000 hours and $2.4 million in time and resources.
112. Trusting Social integrated Azure services to launch AI-driven agents that are changing how banks function and transforming their customer’s banking experience.
113. University of California, Berkeley used Azure OpenAI Service to deploy a custom AI chatbot that supports student learning and help students with complex coursework.
114. University of Sydney created a self-serve AI platform powered by Azure OpenAI Service, to enable faculty to build custom chatbots for enhancing student onboarding, feedback, career simulation, and more.
115. Van Lanschot Kempen is using Microsoft 365 Copilot to reduce the time needed for daily tasks, freeing up time to invest in that crucial personal connection.
116. Virgin Money built an award-winning virtual assistant using Copilot Studio to help build customers’ confidence in their digital products and services.
117. VOCALLS automates over 50 million interactions per year, resulting in a 78% reduction in average handling time aside from a 120% increase in answered calls.
118. Vodafone Group is leveraging Microsoft’s AI solutions, including Azure AI Studio, OpenAI Service, Copilot, and AI Search, to achieve a 70% resolution rate for customer inquiries through digital channels and reduce call times by at least one minute.
119. Walmart is using Azure OpenAI Service to deliver a helpful and intuitive browsing experience for customers designed to serve up a curated list of the personalized items a shopper is looking for.
120. Weights & Biases created a platform which runs on Azure that allows developers to keep records, log successes and failures, and automate manual tasks.
121. World2Meet is providing better customer service and operations with a new virtual assistant powered by Azure.
122. Xavier College is modernizing its student information systems on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Azure to unlock powerful insights, fostering innovation and data-driven decision making.
123. Zavarovalnica Triglav implemented Dynamics 365 and Azure OpenAI Service to streamline its operations with automated responses and smart rerouting of customer enquiries.

Reshaping business processes

Transforming operations is another way generative AI is encouraging innovation and improving efficiency across various business functions. In marketing, it can create personalized content to truly engage different audiences. For supply chain management, it can predict market trends so companies can optimize their inventory levels. Human resources departments can speed up the hiring process, while financial services can use it for fraud detection and risk assessments. With generative AI, companies are not just refining their current processes, they’re also discovering exciting new growth opportunities.

124. Accelleron used Microsoft Power Platform to support numerous business applications and simplify processes for service agents and employees, resulting in the onboard of new agents in 30 minutes, compared to two days for other solutions.
125. Accenture developed an AI-powered financial advisor that leverages RISE with SAP on Azure to enhance their infrastructure and integrate financial data.
126. Atomicwork leverages Azure OpenAI to bring together three power capabilities: a conversational assistant, a modern service management system, and a workflow automation platform.
127. Blink Ops fully embraced generative AI to build the world’s first Security Automation Copilot with more than 8,000 automated workflows to help any Security/IT task through prompts.
128. Chalhoub Group is using Microsoft Fabric to modernize its data analytics and streamline its data sources into one platform, increasing agility, enhancing analytics, and accelerating processes.
129. Cineplex is developing innovative automation solutions for finance, guest services, and other departments, saving the company more than 30,000 hours a year in manual processing time.
130. ClearBank moved its services to Azure to gain scalability and efficiency, pushing out 183% more monthly system releases, gaining both scalability and efficiency.
131. Danske Statsbaner increases productivity up to 30% with help from Microsoft AI solutions.
132. Eastman implemented Microsoft Security Copilot realizing the benefits of accelerated upskilling, step-by-step guidance for response, and faster threat remediation.
133. Fast Shop migrated to Azure creating a self-service culture of access to data, eliminating delays, reducing costs, and increasing leadership satisfaction with data while providing more agility in reporting.
134. Florida Crystals adopted a value-added solution across Microsoft products including Microsoft 365 Copilot to reduce telecom expenses and automate industrial process controls.
135. GHD is reinventing the request for proposal (RFP) process in construction and engineering with Microsoft 365 Copilot.
136. GovDash is a software as a service (SaaS) platform that leverages AI to streamline the entire business development lifecycle for government contracting companies using Azure OpenAI Service.
137. Grupo Bimbo is deploying Microsoft’s industrial AI technologies to modernize its manufacturing processes, optimizing production and reducing downtime, driving significant cost savings, and empowering global innovation.
138. Insight Canada implemented Microsoft 365 Copilot to streamline business operations, realizing a 93% productivity gains in functions including sales, finance, and human resources.
139. Intesa Sanpaolo Group enhanced its cybersecurity with AI-enabled Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Security Copilot, resulting in faster threat detection, increased productivity, and reduced storage costs.
140. Kaya deployed a custom implementation of Dynamics 365 and Power BI to modernize its supply chain, leading to enhanced visibility, improved planning, and streamlined inter-department operations.
141. Lionbridge Technologies, LLC is using Azure and Azure OpenAI Service to accelerate its delivery times and improve quality, reducing project turnaround times by up to 30%.
142. LTIMindtree integrated Microsoft Security Copilot, offering automated incident response, integrated threat intelligence, and advanced threat analysis.
143. Mania de Churrasco used Azure, Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft 365 to achieve high efficiency, security, and scalability in its operations, in addition to improving its data intelligence, which indirectly participated in a 20% increase in sales year on year.
144. National Bank of Greece built an Azure-powered Document AI solution to transform its document processing, improving the bank’s accuracy to 90%. 
145. Nest Bank has revolutionized its operations by integrating Microsoft 365 Copilot and Azure OpenAI Service, resulting in doubled sales and increased daily transactions from 60,000 to 80,000 showcasing the transformative impact of generative AI in the financial sector.
146. Network Rail modernized their data analytics solution with Azure, helping engineers understand data 50% faster than before and improve efficiency, passenger experiences, and safety—all while saving costs.
147. Nsure developed an AI-powered agent that uses Copilot Studio and Power Automate to reduce manual processing time by 60% while also reducing associated costs by 50%.
148. Oncoclínicas implemented Azure to transform its entire data ecosystem with a web portal and mobile application that performs all image processing and storage.
149. Pacífico Seguros has adopted Microsoft Security Copilot to optimize its security operations and anticipate and neutralize threats more efficiently and effectively.
150. Parexel adopted Azure Databricks and Power BI, achieving an 85% reduction in data engineering tooling costs, a 30% increase in staff efficiency, and a 70% reduction in time to market for data product delivery.
151. Paysafe used Microsoft 365 Copilot to streamline meetings, information management, and document creation, addressing language barriers, eliminating time-consuming tasks, and boosting creativity along the way.
152. Planted is integrating Azure OpenAI Service to manage everyday tasks more efficiently and facilitate the search for information for innovative process development.
153. Presidio realized dramatic productivity gains saving 1,200 hours per month on average for the employees using Microsoft 365 Copilot and created 70 new business opportunities.
154. Qatar Charity used Copilot Studio to increase its call center efficiency, reducing average handle time by 30%, increased customer satisfaction by 25%, and achieved a 40% reduction in IT maintenance costs.
155. Saphyre uses Azure and AI to provide an intelligent cloud-based solution that automates and streamlines financial trading workflows around client and counterparty life cycle management, reducing manual efforts by 75%. 
156. Swiss International Air Lines migrated and modernized with Azure, achieving up to 30% cost savings, a remarkable boost in platform stability along with enhanced security visibility.
157. ZEISS Group uses Microsoft Fabric to create a secure and trusted data supply chain that can be shared effortlessly across a range of business units.
158. ZF Group builds manufacturing efficiency with more than 25,000 apps and 37,000 unique active users on Microsoft Power Platform.

Bending the curve on innovation

Generative AI is revolutionizing innovation by speeding up creative processes and product development. It’s helping companies come up with new ideas, design prototypes, and iterate quickly, cutting down the time it takes to get to market. In the automotive industry, it’s designing more efficient vehicles, while in pharmaceuticals, it’s crafting new drug molecules, slashing years off research and development (R&D) times. In education, it transforms how students learn and achieve their goals. Here are more examples of how companies are embracing generative AI to shape the future of innovation.

159. Air India has incorporated Microsoft 365 Copilot into multiple departments, unlocking a new realm of operational insights that not only provides critical data on flight punctuality and operational hurdles, but also empowers proactive, collaborative decision making.
160. Agnostic Intelligence deployed Azure OpenAI Service to eliminate time-consuming tasks, saving users up to 80% of their time, and enabling IT managers to focus on innovation and quality assurance.
161. Albert Heijn is using Azure OpenAI Service for everything from customer personalization to demand forecast and food waste projects, making it easier for its customers to change their lifestyle.
162. Amgen is using Microsoft 365 Copilot to boost productivity and has the potential to speed up drug development and support advancements in their business processes.
163. APEC leverages Azure and deep neural network algorithms to develop an app that enables healthcare providers to capture retinal images, increasing the accuracy to identify Retinopathy of Prematurity (RoP) to 90%.
164. ASOS is using Azure AI Studio to help customers discover new looks with genuine shopping insights, personalized conversations, naturalism, and even humor to enliven the shopping journey.
165. Auburn University is incorporating Microsoft Copilot to promote AI literacy, accessibility, and collaboration, with the aim to expand educational and economic opportunities for its entire academic community with AI-centric tools.
166. B3 launched an AI assistant using Azure OpenAI Service that aids 10,000 users a day to answer Brazilians’ questions about how to start investing.
167. Basecamp Research aims to build the world’s largest database of national biodiversity and apply AI and machine learning to advance bioscience.
168. Bayer is using Microsoft Copilot to contribute to feeding a growing global population and helping people lead healthier, disease-free lives.
169. Brembo leveraged Azure OpenAI Service to develop ALCHEMIX, a solution to generate innovative compounds for its brake pads, drastically reducing the development time of new compounds from days to mere minutes.
170. Canary Speech can now train new vocal models in as little as two months and handle millions of transactions per month with Azure. 
171. CapitaLand simplified internal processes increasing efficiency to more than 10,000 man-days saved per year and deployed Azure OpenAI Service to build the first AI hospitality chatbot for its lodging business.
172. Cassidy is using Azure OpenAI Service to enhance efficiency across various industries, supporting more than 10,000 companies.
173. Coca-Cola is implementing Azure OpenAI Service to develop innovative generative AI use cases across various business functions, including testing how Microsoft 365 Copilot could help improve workplace productivity.
174. Denso is developing “human-like” robots using Azure OpenAI Service as the brain to help robots and humans work together through dialogue.
175. eFishery is using Azure OpenAI for farmers to get the data and insights on fish and shrimp farming, including more precise feeding and water quality monitoring.
176. EY developed an application that automatically matches and clears incoming payments in SAP, resulting in an increase from 30% to 80% in automatically cleared payments and 95% matched payments, with estimated annual time savings of 230,000 hours globally.
177. FIDO is using Azure OpenAI Service to develop an AI tool that uses sound to pinpoint leaky pipes, saving precious drinking water. 
178. Georgia Tech is using Azure OpenAI Service to enhance the electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure, achieving rapid data classification and predictive modeling, highlighting the reliability of networked chargers over non-networked ones.
179. GigXR developed a solution to create the intelligence for specific AI patients using Azure OpenAI Service and other Azure services.
180. GoTo Group is significantly enhancing productivity and code quality across its engineering teams by adopting GitHub Copilot, saving over seven hours per week and achieved a 30% code acceptance rate.
181. GovTech used Azure OpenAI Service to create LaunchPad, sparking more than 400 ideas and 20 prototypes, laying the foundation for the government to harness the power of generative AI.
182. H&R Block is using Azure AI Studio and Azure OpenAI Service to build a new solution that provides real-time, reliable tax filing assistance.
183. Haut.AI provides skin care companies and retailers with customizable, AI-based skin diagnostic tools developed with the help of Microsoft AI.
184. Helfie is building a solution that caters to healthcare providers who can arm their patients with an application to more quickly and accurately access the care they need.
185. Hitachi will implement Azure Open AI Service, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and GitHub Copilot to create innovative solutions for the energy, mobility, and other industries.
186. Icertis is providing AI-based tools that will recognize contract language and then build algorithms to automatically choose the right approach based on the content of the contract.
187. ITOCHU is using Azure OpenAI Service and Azure AI Studio to evolve its data analytics dashboard into a service that provides immediate recommendations by automatically creating evidence-based product proposals.
188. IU International University of Applied Sciences (IU) is using the power of Azure OpenAI Service to develop Syntea, an AI avatar integrated into Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot, making learning more personalized, autonomous, and flexible.
189. Khan Academy has partnered with Microsoft to bring time-saving and lesson-enhancing AI tools to millions of educators.
190. Lufthansa Group developed an animated 3D avatar called Digital Hangar to help guide passengers from initial travel inspiration to flight booking through an exchange with an avatar in natural language.
191. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is using Azure OpenAI Service to help accelerate digital innovation in power plants.
192. Molslinjen has created an AI analytics toolbox that has reduced fuel emissions, improved customer satisfaction, and brought in millions of additional revenue.
193. Novo Nordisk recently published initial results with predictive AI models for advanced risk detection in cardiovascular diseases, including an algorithm that can predict patients’ cardiovascular risk better than the best clinical standards. 
194. Paige.AI​ is using AI and Azure to accelerate cancer diagnoses with data from millions of images.
195. Pets at Home created an agent to help its retail fraud detection team investigate suspicious transactions.  
196. Plan Heal is using Microsoft AI to create solutions that enable patients to monitor and report health metrics so care providers can better serve them.
197. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is testing a new battery material that was found in a matter of weeks, not years, as part of a collaboration with Microsoft.
198. Rijksmuseum is harnessing the power of Copilot to make art accessible at scale by joining forces with Microsoft to improve and expand the art experience for blind and low-vision community members.
199. Royal National Institute of Blind People is using Azure AI Services to develop an AI-based solution that quickly and accurately converts letters to braille, audio, and large print formats.
200. Schneider Electric provides productivity-enhancing and energy efficiency solutions and is using a whole suite of AI tools to hasten its own innovation and that of its customers.
201. SPAR ICS created an award-winning, AI-enabled demand forecasting system achieving 90% inventory prediction accuracy.
202. Suzuki Motor Corporation is adopting Azure OpenAI Service for data security, driving company-wide use with five multipurpose apps.
203. Tecnológico de Monterrey created a generative AI-powered ecosystem built on Azure OpenAI Service with the goal to personalize education based on the students’ needs, improve the learning process, boost teachers’ creativity and save time on tedious tasks.
204. TomTom is using Azure OpenAI Service, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Kubernetes Service to revolutionize the driver experience.
205. Unilever is partnering with Microsoft to identify new digital capabilities to drive product innovation forward, from unlocking the secrets of our skin’s microbiome to reducing the carbon footprint of a multibillion-dollar business.
206. Unity used Azure OpenAI Service to build Muse Chat, an AI assistant that can guide creators through common questions and help troubleshoot issues to make game development easier.
207. University of South Florida is using Microsoft 365 Copilot to alleviate the burden of repetitive, time-consuming tasks so faculty and staff can spend this time creatively solving problems, conducting critical research, establishing stronger relationships with peers and students, and using their expertise to forge new, innovative paths. 
208. Visma has developed new code with GitHub Copilot, Azure DevOps, and Microsoft Visual Studio, as much as 50% faster, contributing to increased customer retention, faster time to market, and increased revenue.
209. Wallenius Wilhelmsen is implementing Microsoft 365 Copilot and using Microsoft Viva to drive sustainable adoption, streamlining processes, empowering better decision making, and cultivating a culture of innovation and inclusion.
210. Wipro is committed to delivering value to customers faster and improving the outcomes across the business by investing $1 billion in AI and training 200,000 employees on generative AI principles with Microsoft Copilot.

Next steps for AI transformation

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Zero waste by 2030 is a cornerstone of our sustainability strategy, along with becoming carbon negative, water positive, and protecting more land than we use. This recent milestone, driven by a culture of innovation and cross-functional collaboration, reflects the growing momentum to integrate zero waste and circularity practices across the technology industry.

Working alongside our recovery partners and suppliers, we are advancing the sustainability of our cloud supply chain and driving toward our zero-waste target in three key areas: (1) piloting the sustainable extraction of rare earth minerals from hard disk drives at scale, (2) continuing to expand our Circular Centers around the world, and (3) co-creating recyclable packaging solutions for transporting datacenter hardware.

Innovating to create a US-based supply of recycled rare earth elements

Today, we’re announcing a collaboration with Western Digital, Critical Materials Recycling, and PedalPoint Recycling demonstrating how we transformed approximately 50,000 pounds of end-of-life hard disk drives (HDDs) and other materials into critical, high-value materials, recovering rare earth elements (REEs) like neodymium and precious metals like gold and copper. By enabling the REE recovery process to be managed domestically, the program was designed to minimize transportation emissions and boost the resilience of the United States REE supply chain by decreasing dependence on imported materials.

When HDDs are retired from service, the data-carrying components are sanitized and shredded to ensure data security, while other components are separated in order to enable recycling and recirculation of REE materials. This initiative tackled some of the persistent technical challenges with recycling REEs: developing methods to achieve a high recovery rate for the materials, finding a recycling technique that avoids the use of harsh chemicals, and proving that the REE recycling process can be economically viable in the long term.

The innovative, acid-free dissolution of shredded HDDs delivered an impressive 90% high-yield recovery of elemental and rare-earth materials. In addition, the recycling process has an estimated 95% reduction in emissions compared to traditional mining and processing practices, based on life cycle analysis. Setting a new standard for industrial recovery of critical materials, this initiative was one of the first demonstrations of large scale, in-country recycling of essential metals and materials.

Expanding Circular Centers around the globe

Across the company, our teams are working to improve resource efficiency and expand the lifetime value of materials through the three Rs: reduce, reuse, and recover. Within our global datacenters, our Microsoft Circular Centers are foundational to our progress, enabling us to process and route decommissioned servers and hardware components to their next useful lives, such as internal reuse, other electronic supply chains, or academies that train datacenter technicians.

By redesigning systems to reduce waste, then reusing and recovering materials wherever possible, we’re saving costs, gaining efficiency, and discovering new opportunities for hardware and infrastructure components. For example, we have successfully reused more than 3.2 million components through internal and external channels in 2024, recognizing a 30% increase or more in value recovery through our Circular Center program.

Since opening our first Circular Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 2020, we’ve built five additional facilities in the United States—Boydton, Virginia; Chicago, Illinois; and Quincy, Washington—as well as in Dublin, Ireland, and Singapore. To continue to connect our reuse and recycling around the globe, new Circular Centers are planned for Cardiff, Wales; New South Wales, Australia; and San Antonio, Texas.

As we build on progress over the past five years, we’re excited to continue accelerating circularity practices across our business. Preventing waste remains the core of our zero-waste strategy. In addition, we’re continuing to invest in expanding markets for circular solutions and collaborating with local organizations to support circularity in the communities where we operate and work.

Co-creating novel packaging solutions for datacenter hardware

In addition to advancing hardware circularity, we are also tackling the challenge of packaging for all of the hardware and components we use in our datacenters. With more than 150 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) supplying our datacenters, solutions need to ensure the same level of protection and security for servers, racks, and components as traditional packaging methods.

Microsoft datacenters

Sustainability and waste reduction in our datacenters

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One of the key challenges with packaging for the hardware and components in our datacenters is that it is typically multi-layered—for example, packaging for server racks might include a layer of wood, then glue, foam, then more wood. Because of this, the packaging was traditionally not recyclable via curbside pickup. Over the past 18 months, our Cloud Logistics team has worked with suppliers, logistics service providers, and recyclers to take those pallets and separate the layers, making the materials recyclable through local collaborations.

As a result, packaging from more than 30,000 server racks was processed through our global packaging recycling program, diverting more than 2,500 metric tons of waste from landfills. Moving forward, we are exploring the expansion of this recycling program to other types of packaging such as those used for cables, spares, and network components.

Beyond recycling, our teams look for opportunities to reuse materials within the value chain to reduce the need to procure something new and enable increased waste diversion, whether for hardware, components, or packaging. For example, we are working to reduce the hard-to-recycle, plastic-based, expanded polyethylene (EPE) foam in packaging, replacing it with more sustainable paper and pulp alternatives.

Another impactful way to increase circularity in our supply chain is with innovations in packaging for our server racks. We’re currently testing reusable solutions that advance sustainability and improve business efficiency by reducing cost and providing consistency in the unpacking experience for datacenter teams, all while keeping server racks safe during transport and handling.

Explore Microsoft’s work to reduce waste in our datacenters

To learn more about Microsoft’s work to reduce waste in our datacenters, check out datacenters.microsoft.com/sustainability.

For business leaders interested in developing a circular strategy for their organization, read the whitepaper Four pillars of a successful circular datacenter hardware program with deeper insight into four essential aspects of Microsoft’s Circular Center program. 

The post Sustainable by design: Innovating for zero waste appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

As the technology continues to advance, new Microsoft AI agents unveiled over the past few weeks can help people every day with things like research, cybersecurity and more.

First things first: What is an AI agent? 

Imagine having a personal assistant that doesn’t just respond to commands but anticipates your needs, does complex tasks and keeps learning from every interaction — meaning it actually improves over time. 

AI agents analyze their environment, make decisions and take actions, tackling tasks with you or on your behalf based on your goals and guardrails. That means that instead of doing repetitive tasks, you can save time and focus on more creative and strategic work.

 Agents that use reasoning to help you do more 

Two new reasoning agents announced in late March for Microsoft 365 Copilot can help you be more productive in the office. Named Researcher and Analyst, both can securely analyze your work data — emails, meetings, files, chats and more — and the web to deliver highly skilled expertise on demand.

Researcher helps you tackle complex, multi-step research at work. It can build a detailed marketing strategy based on your work data and broader info from the web, identify opportunities for a new product based on emerging trends and internal data, or create a comprehensive quarterly report for a client review. It can also integrate data from external sources such as Salesforce, ServiceNow and Confluence directly into Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Researcher combines OpenAI’s deep research model with Microsoft 365 Copilot’s advanced orchestration and deep search capabilities.

Analyst, built on OpenAI’s o3-mini reasoning model, thinks like a virtual data scientist. It can take raw data scattered across multiple spreadsheets to do things like forecast how much demand there will be for a new product or build a visualization of customer purchasing patterns. 

Agents that help automate cybersecurity tasks

Other new agents can help organizations defend against cyberthreats, handling certain security tasks to help human teams be more efficient.

These agents, introduced March 24, are designed to autonomously assist with critical areas such as phishing, data security and identity management. 

For example, a new phishing triage agent in Microsoft Security Copilot can handle routine phishing alerts and cyberattacks, freeing up human cybersecurity teams to focus on more complex cyberthreats and proactive security measures.

And the new Alert Triage Agents in Microsoft Purview can triage data loss prevention and insider risk alerts, prioritize critical incidents and continuously improve accuracy based on administrator feedback.

Agents to help developers build and deploy AI securely

Agents are giving developers new options as well.

Two new ones are accessible in Azure AI Foundry — a platform where developers and organizations build, deploy and manage AI apps, providing the infrastructure developers need to create intelligent agents on a large scale. 

Microsoft Fabric data agents allow developers using Azure AI Agent Service in Azure AI Foundry to connect customized, conversational agents created in Microsoft Fabric. These data agents can reason over and unlock insights from various sources to make better data-driven decisions.

For example, NTT DATA, a Japanese IT and consulting company, is using data agents in Microsoft Fabric to have conversations with HR and back-office operations data to better understand what is happening in the organization.

And the new AI Red Teaming Agent, now in public preview, systematically probes AI models to uncover safety risks. It generates comprehensive reports and tracks improvements over time, creating an AI safety-testing ecosystem that evolves alongside your system.

Learn more about the latest in agents at Microsoft Build 2025 — registration is now open.

Image was created using Microsoft Designer, an AI-powered graphic design application.

The post 3 new ways AI agents can help you do even more appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

From the world’s biggest companies using agents to automate business processes that run tens of thousands of times a day to each of us now having the power to quickly create custom AI assistants using plain language—agents are reshaping work for both organizations and individuals.  

In this edition, we hear from Charles Lamanna, Corporate Vice President of Business and Industry Copilot, who is spearheading the work at Microsoft to bring AI agents to organizations. In this Q&A, Charles shares his insights on how we arrived at this moment in AI transformation, agents in the workplace for the organization and the individual, why customers that are AI-first are thriving, and where agents will start to show up outside of work.  

Let’s learn more from Charles about the transformative potential of agents and where this technology is headed next. 

What is a good analogy to describe the AI moment we are in right now? 

AI can feel abstract, but to understand the moment we’re in, it’s helpful to think about other turning points in history where technology became a force multiplier for people.  

Take the tractor, for example. Two hundred years ago, nearly everyone in America farmed for a living. Now, it’s less than 2%, because tractors completely changed the game, freeing people up to innovate elsewhere. Or clothing—not that long ago, most people owned a few outfits. Then mechanized looms came along and clothing became abundant. 

Steve Jobs famously called computers a “bicycle for the mind” because just as a bicycle helps humans move far more efficiently, computers amplified what our minds could achieve. Stretching that analogy, if computers are the bicycle, AI is the jetpack of the mind. It’s not just speeding us up, it’s lifting us to entirely new heights.  

If computers are the bicycle, AI is the jetpack of the mind. It’s not just speeding us up, it’s lifting us to entirely new heights.”

—Charles Lamanna

We’re at an exciting time where AI puts deep expertise directly at everyone’s fingertips, breaking down barriers to knowledge. Just as tractors transformed farming and mechanized looms changed clothing production, AI agents are transforming fields like law, medicine, and software development. They’re the tractors for lawyers, the mechanized looms for doctors, and combustion engines for developers.  

Why is the shift to an “AI-first mindset” so important for businesses?  

Adopting an AI-first mindset is crucial because it fundamentally transforms the way businesses operate. AI isn’t just a novelty—it’s a core capability that is necessary to stay relevant.  

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Businesses embracing AI-first thinking reach new levels of scale that are just not possible without the speed and power of AI. For example, global supply chains are enormously complex. AI can quickly process vast amounts of data, predict trends, and take actions in real time—tasks that would take people weeks or months can now happen in hours or minutes. AI agents can generate reports or even actively make informed decisions under human oversight.  

A core component for an AI-first company is agents—think of them as the new apps. They can execute core tasks with and on behalf of people, unifying business data, apps, email, chat platforms, and more. Agents can range from simple to advanced, doing everything from addressing customer service inquiries, to doing the heavy lifting of data analysis.  

Imagine replicating this efficiency across every element of a company: human resources, logistics, sales, finance, and research and development. You can see how profound this transformation is across the business.   

When do you think AI agents will go from being an add-on to the main driver of business? 

Right now, we’re seeing the beginnings of a major transformation where AI agents are shifting from being used as helpful “add-ons” to becoming the core drivers of business. We can think about this AI journey in a few stages.  

Initially, we’re seeing AI augment people in an organization—everyone has a powerful AI assistant that deeply understands their specific work, makes them more productive, and makes daily tasks easier.  

As organizations move further along this journey, we’ll see a big jump. AI agents will evolve to become key team members, capable of autonomously managing complex workflows and boosting efficiency considerably. People will set high-level strategies, provide direction and manage these agents. And this will continue to evolve.   

I think companies that have adopted an AI-first mindset are already working towards that future as more advanced agent capabilities are added.  

Who do you think is doing a good job of working with AI and agents? 

It’s exciting to see companies adopting AI agents in a big way. 

Take Estée Lauder Companies, for instance. They have 80 years’ worth of valuable consumer data from surveys, clinical trials, promotions, and product usage. With an agent called ConsumerIQ, built using Microsoft Copilot Studio, employees can instantly tap into insights that used to take hours of manual research. They can ask, “What are the latest trends for mascara use among Gen Z?” and within seconds, the agent will collect, summarize, and deliver the answer. 

Dow spends billions annually on freight shipping and receives thousands of invoices daily. They built agents that analyze and detect anomalies and have already uncovered billing errors—like catching a $30,000 charge that should’ve been $5,000.  

At Microsoft, we’re also using agents, and one example is on Azure.com. With more than 400 product and service pages, customers struggled to find the information they needed. The team built an AI assistant using Copilot Studio, and visitors who used the AI assistant showed 70% more pages visited per session and a 21.5% increase in conversion rates.  

Where do you see agents changing our daily lives beyond the workplace?  

We’re going to see agents show up more in our daily lives, and I think people will be excited about it. Imagine having a personal agent that handles annoying tasks no one enjoys—sorting emails, paying bills, or making appointments.  

In healthcare, agents can become personal health assistants, proactively monitoring your wellness and reminding you about medications. This could make life easier for those managing chronic health problems. 

On top of all this, anyone will be able to create agents for their own use without any coding experience. It won’t be something that only developers or coders are trusted to do.  

Looking ahead, the possibilities are limitless. Imagine a future where agents effortlessly handle life’s complexities, freeing you up to spend more time on the people and activities that bring you joy and meaning. That’s the future we’re building towards, and it’s closer than you might think. 

Learn more about Microsoft’s innovation with AI agents 

AI agents are an exciting space for business leaders to explore, from being able to assist with document creation at an individual worker’s level to taking on the most intensive and critical business processes at a company. Agents will vary in complexity, and they’ll come from many different sources—from the agents built by Microsoft or our partner ecosystem to the custom agents tailored to take on your exact challenge. With this rise of AI agents, we will see even more ways for AI deliver on the promise of real business value.

Interested in learning more?

Here are a few recommended resources:

• Register for the Business Applications Launch Event
• Refactor your skills at Microsoft Build 2025
• Read AI agents — what they are, and how they’ll change the way we work
• Begin your AI learning journey with the AI learning hub 

The post FYAI: How agents will transform business and daily work with Business and Industry Copilot Corporate Vice President Charles Lamanna appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

It’s so wonderful to be here with all of you celebrating 50 years of Microsoft. And it’s especially exciting to be doing it at a time like this. For me, though, it starts with Bill [Gates] and Steve [Ballmer], who are both here with us today. I want to say a very big thank you to the two of you, and to Paul [Allen], and what you’ve meant to me personally and your vision that you had building this extraordinary company of ours that I’ve had the privilege to be part of. Thank you for your vision, your leadership, your passion, and for building the Microsoft that we know today. A company that has truly changed the world.

Fifty years ago, Bill and Paul started Microsoft with a simple but powerful idea: to build technology so people everywhere could build more technology. The very first product Microsoft built was the Basic interpreter for the Altair, giving people the power to create software, jumpstarting the PC revolution, and creating an entirely new sector for our economy.

YouTube Video

But today, it’s not just about the past 50 years, it’s about the next 50. If there’s one thing that I have learned during my time at Microsoft, it’s not about longevity, but relevance. Our future will not be defined by what we have built, but what we empower others to build.

This is why we are leading this new wave of AI innovation and more importantly, democratizing it, just like we did with the PC. From there we’ve gone to chat, to multi file edits, and now to agents. More than 150 million developers in nearly every country around the world are using GitHub.

So, I thought to myself, what if I could take that power and rebuild Microsoft’s very first product? And so, I tried it.

YouTube Video

You really know you’re on to something. Intelligence has been commoditized when CEOs can start vibe coding. But in all seriousness, this is not just a cool party trick, It’s transformational. It’s empowering. It’s unleashing human ambition. And it’s happening now.

In fact, I’m excited to share that the capability I just showed with Agent Mode is rolling out to all Visual Studio Code users starting today. We now have autonomous AI agents or peer programmers who can collaborate with us to anticipate our needs and help us think more creatively, and it does not stop there. We are bringing full MCP support to Agent Mode; we’re also launching Code Review Agent today to fix and fine bugs automatically; we’re also making it easier than ever before for developers to build their own agents in Azure AI Foundry.

Think of it like an agent factory. It’s a production line for intelligence. Tens and thousands of organizations are using Foundry to build their own agents. And today, we’re going further. We now have a new agent framework for building multi-agent systems. But building agents is just the very beginning. We’re also building tools for all the evals, fine tuning, observability, and feedback. And you’ll also have a red teaming agent and tools to measure code vulnerabilities. All of this in support of building trustworthy AI systems. There’s much, much more to come.

What started out as a developer tools company 50 years ago is now a platform company where everyone can be a developer. Our mission has not changed, it’s only expanded.

Just as we have done always, we are putting the power in people’s hands so that they can build software that moves their communities, their countries forward. The same ethos is driving Copilot, not just for developers, but for every aspect of working life. Helping people do things that allow them to do more things, whether it’s building apps, doing homework, shopping, planning, and so much more.

Ultimately, it all comes down to our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. I’ve always thought of Microsoft as a platform and partner-first company, and this has only been possible because of our customers, our partners and developers, and our 1.6 million employees, past and present, who have connected their passion with our purpose to get us where we are today. And it’s you who will continue to build this company to have impact around the world well into the future.

So, from the bottom of my heart, a big thank you to everyone who has contributed to Microsoft in getting us to this moment. I can’t wait to see what is next with Copilot and everything that we have for you.

Remarks have been edited for clarity.

Photo: Bill Gates, Microsoft Co-founder and Gates Foundation Chair; Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO and Ballmer Group Co-founder; and Satya Nadella, Microsoft Chairman and CEO, on stage at the anniversary event. (Photo by Dan DeLong)

Tags: 50th anniversary, Azure AI Foundry, Copilot, GitHub, Visual Studio Code

The post Celebrating Microsoft’s 50 years appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

The United Kingdom (UK) is on the brink of a half-a-trillion-pound opportunity, powered by AI and cloud technologies that are set to transform industries, boost productivity, and redefine the way we work. As Europe’s most advanced digital economy, home to 171 unicorns worth more than £800 billion, the UK has already proven its appetite for innovation, investing more than £20 billion in AI since 2016. But realizing AI’s full potential isn’t just about investment, it’s about action.

AI is no longer a distant concept. Businesses across every sector are already embedding AI-powered agents into their operations—automating workflows, streamlining decision-making, and eliminating digital drudgery to free employees for more impactful work. The rise of agentic AI—technology that doesn’t just respond to commands but takes action on our behalf—marks a major shift, poised to revolutionize everything from customer service to cybersecurity, driving efficiency, resilience, and innovation at scale.

And yet, a stark AI divide is emerging. More than half of UK organizations still lack a formal AI strategy, and 57% of business leaders report a growing gap in productivity between AI adopters and non-adopters. With employees and leaders already stretched thin, the demand for AI-powered solutions has never been more pressing.

The question is no longer whether AI will reshape the UK economy, but how quickly businesses will step up to seize the opportunity. Organizations that act decisively—building clear AI strategies and investing in the right capabilities—will be the ones that thrive. I highlighted several of these leading organizations during my AI Tour keynote, and I’m excited to share more of their journeys here. 

Pets at Home reimagines integrated pet care with AI

Pets at Home, the UK’s largest pet care company, is transforming its operations with AI agents powered by Microsoft Copilot Studio. The company, which includes 450 retail stores, an online platform, veterinary practices, and grooming services, initially operated in silos but underwent a digital transformation to unify the customer experience across all channels using Microsoft Azure.

With a centralized data platform in place, Pets at Home turned to AI to enhance efficiency. One of the first AI agents supported fraud detection, swiftly analyzing vast amounts of data to identify suspicious transactions, such as repeated use of the same image for fraudulent refund claims. This has significantly improved fraud investigation speed and accuracy.

AI is also powering personalized customer interactions. With 8 million loyalty program members and 10 million pets, the company uses machine learning to recommend tailored pet care solutions across its retail, veterinary, and grooming services. This ensures customers receive relevant, stage-specific pet care guidance.

The company’s veterinary practices are using AI to reduce administrative tasks, allowing clinicians to focus more on patient care. AI-powered transcription services assist during consultations and operations, while scheduling automation improves efficiency, enhancing clinical focus, and aligning with the company’s mission of better pet care.

By integrating AI agents, Pets at Home has enhanced fraud detection, improved personalization, and streamlined veterinary operations, driving innovation and efficiency across its ecosystem.

Amey embraces AI agents for a safer, more connected workforce

Amey, a UK-based engineering firm, plays a vital role in designing, maintaining, operating, and building the country’s infrastructure. With services impacting 75% of the UK population daily, ensuring safety and efficiency is a top priority.

Access to safety information has long been a challenge for frontline workers, who previously had to stop tasks and manually sift through folders full of paper documents for relevant details. Without regular access to laptops or computers, Amey opted to democratize information access for its workforce with mobile-friendly AI-powered agents.

Now, 99% of its 118 million files are stored on SharePoint, and AI allows employees to retrieve answers instantly through a chat interface. No more digging through folders—critical safety information is now just a few taps away, preventing issues and resolving others faster.

The AI system boosts efficiency and safety by providing instant access to essential information, real-time troubleshooting, and multilingual support while maintaining English documentation. By filling gaps where supervisors aren’t always available, it reduces risks and empowers employees to work more confidently and get home safely every day.

With AI now embedded in everyday operations, Amey is setting new standards for workplace safety and efficiency, proving that technology is a powerful ally in protecting and empowering its workforce.

Nationwide streamlines operations and cuts response times with generative AI

Nationwide, the world’s largest building society, serves 17 million customers across more than 600 UK branches. After merging with around 250 smaller societies, it faced a tangled web of data. By applying Microsoft Azure, Azure Databricks, and Teradata’s VantageCloud, it streamlined everything into a powerful, centralized platform, empowering employees to access a complete view of customer needs in seconds, delivering faster, more personalized service with greater efficiency.

Nationwide has built upon that infrastructure by integrating GPT-4 within Azure OpenAI Service to augment various business functions. One of the most impactful applications has been in customer correspondence, where AI-generated letters have reduced response times from 45 minutes to approximately 10–15 minutes, a 66% improvement in efficiency. AI has also been deployed to automate routine back-office tasks, allowing employees to focus on addressing more complex customer inquiries and improving overall service quality, which reflects Nationwide’s philosophy of using AI as a “copilot” to assist employees rather than as an “autopilot” to replace them.

Nationwide has established an AI Centre of Expertise and an AI Council to oversee responsible AI use, ensuring transparency and responsible standards in collaboration with Microsoft. This framework builds customer trust while guiding the expansion of AI into contact center operations, credit risk assessment, economic crime monitoring, its virtual assistant Arti, and CO₂ emissions reporting.

Be My Eyes puts AI into the hands of blind and low-vision individuals

Be My Eyes has long connected blind and low-vision people with sighted volunteers and partner companies through live video assistance. Now, with AI, it’s radically improving accessibility. In collaboration with Microsoft, Be My Eyes is making AI models more inclusive for the 340 million people worldwide with no or low vision by integrating accessibility data to serve diverse needs better.

A key innovation is Be My AI, a tool that helps users independently navigate their digital world by providing AI-powered descriptions of on-screen content. Part of Be My Eyes for Windows, Be My AI makes it easier to browse websites, use applications, or read documents. It also provides descriptions of locally stored images, offering clarity on personal photos and saved graphics. Online images can be analyzed simply by copying them to the clipboard for a detailed text description. The tool even helps users prepare for video calls by checking if they are centered in the frame and describing their background before going live.

An interactive chatbot allows users to ask follow-up questions about descriptions for a more dynamic and personalized experience. While the app is still in beta, ongoing improvements and new features will continue to expand its capabilities, allowing Be My Eyes to improve accessibility and redefine independence for blind and low-vision people.

Virgin Money’s virtual assistant is “Redi” to transform customer service

Virgin Money, serving 6.6 million retail and business banking customers, sought to enhance digital customer experience by developing “Redi,” an award-winning virtual assistant. Built using Microsoft Copilot Studio and integrated with Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Redi bridges the gap between digital adoption and customer confidence.

Developed in close collaboration with frontline contact center staff and seamlessly integrated with the Dynamics 365 Knowledge Base, Redi features an intuitive digital journey that provides customers with timely and effective assistance. A core value to the company, the virtual assistant maintains Virgin Money’s distinctive brand voice, understanding colloquialisms and responding to informal language.

Virgin Money collaborated with compliance teams to ensure Redi’s interactions are clear and secure. The assistant introduces itself transparently and seamlessly transitions customers to human agents when handling complex issues, effectively triaging 90% of inquiries, boosting customer satisfaction ratings, and allowing contact center agents to focus on more complex tasks.

This strategic AI deployment exemplifies Virgin Money’s commitment to exceptional customer experience and recognition that the major role of agentic AI has in delivering that now and into the future.

AI for everyone in the UK: Decisive action

The UK’s AI journey has already been transformative, but the next era—powered by agentic AI—has the potential to be truly revolutionary. By and large, UK organizations recognize the competitive advantage AI has to offer, but have yet to fully unlock AI’s potential, citing barriers such as workforce readiness, strategic alignment, and regulatory uncertainty.

Overcoming these hurdles is challenging but certainly achievable. It requires investment not only in AI infrastructure but also in skills development. Microsoft has stepped in with full support for the UK economy, having made a multibillion-pound commitment to AI-enabled datacenters and bringing AI skills to an additional 1 million people by the end of this year, on top of the 1.5 million it has already given digital skills to.

This shared foundation is essential to putting the AI-powered economy within reach, but success will depend on how quickly and effectively businesses themselves take strategic steps to embrace AI. I posed these questions to those who attended the Microsoft AI Tour event in London, and I urge you to consider them as well: 

1. What are you trying to achieve in the next six months, and how can AI help you get there faster? 

2. How are you and your team set up to embrace the change, and what culture shifts are needed to ensure AI adoption is unencumbered? 
3. How can Microsoft and its partners be part of that journey? What do you need from us to accelerate your progress and deliver real outcomes? 

Together, we have the opportunity to shape an AI-powered future where businesses flourish, employees thrive, and the UK cements its position as a global leader in innovation. The time to act is now.

Find the resources to support your AI journey 

• Advance your AI transformation with AI business resources
• Microsoft Agents of Change
• ‘AI divide’ across UK organizations risks growth for many, new Microsoft research reveals

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And that transformation is already well underway: 

• According to Gartner®, “By 2026, more than 80% of enterprises will have used generative AI APIs or models, and/or deployed generative AI-enabled applications in production environments, up from less than 5% in 2023.”¹
• 97% of executives believe generative AI will transform their company and industry, 93% say their generative AI investments are outperforming other strategic areas, based on a research report from Accenture.²

So, how do organizations accelerate their journey through AI adoption? For many leaders, the success of AI-powered reinvention depends on organizations’ readiness to swiftly experiment and adopt a more risk-tolerant approach to scaling generative AI use cases within their operations. 

What AI leaders do differently 

AI leaders incorporate AI into their culture and operations, treating it as an essential element of their business strategy to enhance business value and foster innovation. Organizations at the forefront of this movement are already experiencing transformative impacts. They are leveraging generative AI to unlock new levels of customization in customer interactions, streamline complex workflows, and innovate at an unprecedented scale. By embedding AI into the fabric of their business operations, these leaders are redefining industry standards and setting new benchmarks for success. 

AI in action: How industry leaders are driving reinvention  

ANZ Bank, Zurich Insurance, Telstra, and Coles exemplify how companies can move beyond experimentation and embed AI into their core operations by modernizing their data foundations to fuel AI-powered insights, reskill their workforce to align with new AI capabilities, and ensure AI strategies are co-owned by business and IT leaders.  

ANZ Bank: Cultivating an AI-enabled workforce 

ANZ Bank is a phenomenal example of integrating AI into operations by equipping 45,000 employees with the skills and tools needed to work effectively with AI. A key part of this effort is the AI Immersion Centre, launched in partnership with Microsoft, where employees gain hands-on experience and develop practical AI skills. This initiative fosters a culture of experimentation and continuous learning, helping teams explore AI’s potential across different functions. 

Leadership engagement is central to ANZ’s approach, with the bank implementing CEO-sponsored executive education programs designed to deepen leaders’ understanding of AI ethics, safety, and business applications. These sessions encourage executives to identify AI-powered opportunities and drive adoption across their teams. Through adding thoughtful initiatives, ANZ is strengthening its AI capabilities while ensuring employees are confident and capable in an AI-powered workplace. 

Zurich Insurance: AI-powered data modernization and decision-making 

For a company built on assessing risk and ensuring stability, Zurich Insurance saw early on that AI could revolutionize underwriting and claims processing. With a global footprint and vast amounts of unstructured data across languages and regions, the insurer needed a scalable AI solution to streamline decision-making and enhance customer experiences. 

The impact has been clear, AI is enhancing the employee experience to improve underwriting precision, which has enabled faster claims resolution, and enhanced customer satisfaction. By making AI a core part of operations, Zurich is demonstrating how data modernization and automation fuel reinvention at scale.

Learn more about Zurich’s AI transformation, or how Zurich is shaping the future of underwriting.

Telstra: Aligning leadership and AI strategy for reinvention at scale 

Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications provider, is embedding AI across its entire business to drive both customer engagement and operational efficiency. Recognizing that AI adoption must be a company-wide effort, Telstra has taken a CEO-led approach to AI strategy, ensuring alignment between business and IT leaders. 

Through its AI Academy, employees at all levels gain hands-on AI experience, and with more than 21,000 employees using Microsoft 365 Copilot, this demonstrates how AI is being woven into daily workflows. By embedding AI across its operations—from network management to customer support—Telstra is showing how leadership alignment and strategic implementation can drive AI-powered reinvention at scale.

Coles: AI-powered workforce enablement and operational agility 

As one of Australia’s largest grocery retailers, Coles is using AI to transform both customer experiences and workforce efficiency. With 109 billion daily AI-powered demand predictions across its supply chain, the company is embedding AI into decision-making at every level. 

Coles has deployed machine vision and AI-powered checkout solutions that have saved customers an estimated 400,000 hours annually, reducing friction at checkout while improving efficiency. The company also invested in AI literacy across its workforce, redesigning roles and providing AI-powered decision support for employees in stores and supply chain operations. By integrating AI into its workforce strategy, Coles has gone beyond enhancing operational efficiency, empowering employees to focus on higher-value work while improving customer service. 

Driving competitive advantage in the AI era 

Leaders in AI-powered reinvention aren’t just reacting to change; they are taking bold and decisive action to redefine the future of their organizations. These organizations have moved beyond laying the groundwork for success, they are rapidly experiencing real business value and have turned AI into a competitive advantage.  

AI reinvention is no longer optional. The question is: How will your organization turn AI into a lasting advantage? 

Find the resources to support your AI journey:  

• Explore Microsoft’s AI solutions.
• Advance your AI transformation with AI business resources.
• View more AI Challengers executive insights.
• Listen to the Leading the Shift podcast to hear advice from leaders navigating the AI platform shift.

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¹ Gartner Article, What’s Driving the Hype Cycle for Generative AI, 2024, Arun Chandrasekaran, November 14, 2024.

GARTNER® is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. 

²Accenture Research Report, Reinventing enterprise models in the age of generative AI, Karalee Close and Kestas Sereiva, March 17, 2025.

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