At the heart of this initiative are industry prompts in Copilot Lab and industry templates in Microsoft Copilot Studio—two platforms tailored to meet the unique demands of various businesses. These platforms are not just about providing tools; they’re about delivering a seamless experience that aligns with our customers’ operational workflows, enhancing productivity and fostering creativity.

Copilot Lab serves as a portal for innovation, offering diverse industry prompts that cater to the specific needs of job functions and industries. Getting up to speed on AI prompts can be challenging from both a technical and practical standpoint. If AI prompts are vague or lack necessary details, AI models can produce off-target responses. Copilot Lab provides a repository of prompts that resonate with industry professionals, enabling them to generate meaningful outcomes with Microsoft Copilot’s assistance.

Copilot Studio includes industry copilot templates that can simplify the adoption process for businesses. These templates incorporate industry-specific business logic and custom prompts that streamline operations and decision-making processes. These templates, available in the Copilot Studio Gallery, represent fully working copilots that often only require configuration or integration for an organization to adopt them.

As we continue to build and co-create, our vision is to not only enhance the capabilities of Microsoft Industry Clouds but also to help redefine the way industries operate. By providing accelerators that drive mainstream adoption and co-building with industry partners, we’re setting a new standard for industry solutions.

Copilot Lab

Powerful prompts, a click away

Try the prompts

Industry AI prompts in Copilot Lab

In our continuous pursuit of empowering organizations across various industries, Microsoft has introduced a suite of industry-specific prompts within Copilot Lab. These prompts are a culmination of our efforts to provide a more context-aware AI experience that leverages users’ domain expertise to drive better outcomes. Our new industry prompts help customers quickly get started using Copilot for sector, job, and role-specific scenarios and can be customized with domain-specific details, best practices, and industry context to reduce trial and error and ensure high-quality output. These prompts can create an interactive experience for sector-, job-, and role-specific users, which can enhance prompts and deliver tailored responses, continually improving based on user interactions.

The genesis of these prompts was a collaborative effort, drawing on insights from industry professionals to ensure quality and relevance. The initiative begins with the financial services, retail, and manufacturing industries, introducing 24 industry-specific prompts within Copilot Lab, marking the start of a broader vision to integrate industry-specific intelligence into business operations.

These prompts are readily accessible in Copilot Lab, where users can select prompts that resonate with their professional needs. They are designed to help users ask relevant and specific questions, enabling Copilot to generate insights from data that are finely tuned to their industry’s nuances.

The introduction of these prompts is part of our broader vision to bring industry-specific intelligence to the forefront of business operations. By providing these tailored tools, we aim to enhance productivity and foster innovation within the Microsoft 365 environment.

Accessing these prompts is simple. Within Copilot Lab, a collection of pre-built prompts categorized by industry. Users can select the one that fits their role, and let Copilot do the rest. Users can further customize the prompts with domain-specific details and best practices.

Industry copilot templates in Copilot Studio

Industry copilot templates in Copilot Studio help users streamline the adoption of AI solutions across various sectors, providing pre-built dialogs, intents, entities, prompts, and actions that can be easily customized and extended according to the user’s needs using a low-code/no-code experience.

The templates offer a quick and efficient way to get started with AI, with configurations and rollout typically taking only a few hours. They include publicly accessible and customizable data sources, allowing customers to change the default data source with their own to get the copilot ready for business. This feature is particularly beneficial for industries that require rapid deployment and flexibility, such as retail and sustainability.

For instance, the sustainability insights template in Microsoft Copilot Studio empowers users with easy access to data and insights regarding a company’s sustainability goals and progress, while the copilot template for store operations is designed to enhance the efficiency of retail frontline workers by providing easy access to store procedures and policies. These templates were part of the Microsoft Copilot template gallery unveiled at Microsoft Build 2024 and represent Microsoft’s commitment to empowering users with AI tools that are both powerful and adaptable to their specific industry needs.

Copilot Studio is available worldwide, across 22 datacenters, and supports multi-lingual experiences, making it a versatile tool for global enterprises. The studio’s capabilities are continually expanding, with support for 23 languages and growing, helping to ensure that users can build solutions and respond in their preferred language.

For more detailed information on how to utilize these new features and to stay updated on future releases, users can refer to the resources provided by Microsoft Copilot Studio.

Learn more about industry-specific AI tools

Microsoft remains dedicated to empowering customers through innovation. Our latest offerings in Copilot Lab and Copilot Studio reflect our commitment to providing industry-specific AI tools that are not only powerful but also intuitive and accessible. By continually investing in these technologies, we aim to help ensure that organizations, regardless of size or sector, can harness the full potential of AI to drive efficiency, creativity, and growth.

Copilot learning hub

Learn how to use Microsoft Copilot based on your role

Get started

Get started by exploring detailed guides and information on our industry prompts and templates at Copilot Lab and Copilot Studio. Learn more and stay informed about Microsoft’s advancements in AI by exploring Copilot for Microsoft 365 Tech Community Blog and the Microsoft Industry Blog for insightful articles, or discover more at Copilot learning hub. Together, let’s shape the future of industry innovation with AI.

The post Innovating at the speed of AI: Microsoft’s industry Copilot solutions appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

In the ever-evolving world of technology, AI stands out as a beacon of transformative power, heralding a new era of innovation and opportunity. With a diffusion rate faster than any other technology to date, it is imperative to recognize that AI is not just a technological leap but a global opportunity that transcends borders, industries, and cultures.

Reflecting on my recent discussions during Microsoft’s first AI Tour in India, I’m thrilled by the seismic shift underway in India’s AI landscape. India’s GDP is on track to grow from about USD3.5 trillion to USD5 trillion in the next three years,¹ fueling expected digital technology growth beyond 20% in the same period.² Equally impressive is how the country’s talent and innovative spirit are propelling us into a new era of technological advancement. In fact, India boasts one of the world’s largest pools of AI developers, with more developers contributing to GitHub than almost anywhere else in Asia. Indian AI projects on GitHub account for a quarter of the global total. Simply put, India’s role in shaping the future of AI is undeniable.

Through the lens of India’s vibrant innovation ecosystem, we witness firsthand the remarkable potential of AI to redefine the way businesses operate, solve complex challenges, and create unparalleled value for customers and communities alike.

Microsoft AI

Explore how Microsoft is empowering the world to achieve more with AI

Explore solutions

Genpact’s AI Guru: Empowering teams through generative AI

The deployment of Genpact’s AI Guru, a generative AI chatbot, exemplifies the transformative impact of AI on employee learning and development. By leveraging Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Genpact, a global professional services firm, has revolutionized its internal learning platform, enabling employees to access a wealth of knowledge and expertise at their fingertips. AI Guru assists in everything from IT migration projects to providing management advice, showcasing the power of AI to enhance team collaboration, problem-solving, and productivity.

“Today it’s a learning companion,” said Prashant Shukla, who heads learning and content management for Genome, the company’s online learning platform and knowledge base for AI Guru. “The next step is guiding people on skills they should be learning. In future, we look at this as a coach for specific roles.”

This initiative not only boosts employee engagement and retention but also underscores the importance of continuous learning and adaptation in today’s fast-paced business environment.

Shiksha copilot: Revolutionizing education with AI

In the realm of education, the Shiksha copilot project, developed in collaboration with the Sikshana Foundation and powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, demonstrates the incredible potential of AI to enrich teaching and learning experiences. By generating customized lesson plans, activities, and resources in minutes, Shiksha copilot enables teachers to deliver more engaging and effective instruction, particularly in resource-constrained settings.

“Obviously, they like these experiments,” said veteran science and math teacher Mahalakshmi Ashok, who uses Shiksha copilot to find engaging lesson activities for her students. “Each and every class is becoming lively. The learning has become easier.”

Indeed, AI-driven innovation like Shiksha copilot is not only a time saver for educators, but it provides new avenues for student engagement and learning, democratizing education and fostering a love for learning among students.

Myntra’s AI shopping assistant: Solving the “search” problem for online retail

In the online fashion retail space, Myntra’s AI shopping assistant represents a leap forward in enhancing customer experience through generative AI. By understanding abstract user queries and offering personalized fashion recommendations, the AI assistant breaks new ground in search functionality, moving beyond keywords to understand the nuances of customer preferences.

“This is big,” said Arit Mondal, director of product management at Myntra, “Why? Because this is the first time we have a solution which is solving the unsolved ‘search’ problem in the fashion, beauty and lifestyle industry. And it’s live for customers at scale.”

Beyond streamlining the shopping experience, Myntra’s AI assistant reveals new possibilities for product discovery, significantly increasing the likelihood of purchase and customer satisfaction. Myntra’s success story illustrates the power of AI to understand and cater to the diverse needs of consumers, setting a new standard for personalized online retail.

Jugalbandi: Bridging language barriers with AI

The Jugalbandi project, an AI-driven chatbot initiative, showcases the transformative potential of AI in bridging language barriers and enhancing access to government services for India’s diverse population. By enabling users to interact with the chatbot in multiple languages and receive information in their local dialect, Jugalbandi democratizes access to essential public services and information, empowering individuals and communities.

“It understands your exact problem in your language and then tries to deliver the right information reliably and cheaply, even if that exists in some other language in a database somewhere,” said Abhigyan Raman, a project officer at AI4Bharat, an open-source language AI center based at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai that is a collaborator on the chatbot. “This is revolutionary for people who could not interact with tech because of language barriers.”

This initiative exemplifies the role of AI in fostering inclusivity and equity, ensuring that the benefits of technology reach every corner of society.

Air India’s AI.g: Pioneering AI in aviation customer service

Air India’s introduction of AI.g, the world’s first generative AI virtual agent in the airline industry, marks a significant milestone in leveraging AI to enhance customer service. Handling a wide array of queries across multiple domains, AI.g exemplifies the efficiency and scalability of AI in managing customer interactions, reducing the need for human intervention in routine tasks, and allowing human agents to focus on more complex issues.

“After the emergence of Large Language Model-driven Generative AI capabilities, we are increasingly seeing a definitive shift in guest preferences to use chat interactions to get the information and support they need quickly and directly as compared to browsing several web pages,” said Satya Ramaswamy, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Air India.

Air India has set a new benchmark for responsive customer service excellence in the aviation industry.

Karya’s platform narrows the digital divide while generating data

I also want to share how Karya is bridging the digital opportunity gap by providing people in India’s low-income and marginalized communities with access to AI-enabled digital work. Capitalizing on the increasing affordability of smartphones and data, Karya has developed a smartphone-based platform that integrates AI into daily life, opening up a range of language-based digital tasks to those in underserved rural areas. Serving not only as a source of income but also as a means to enhance digital literacy, Karya highlights the multiplex possibilities of AI to create economic opportunities and narrow the digital divide.

IndiGo’s 6Eskai chat assistant slashes workload for customers service agents

India’s leading airline, IndiGo, has introduced 6Eskai, an AI chat assistant built on Microsoft’s GPT-4 designed to revolutionize customer service by providing assistance in 10 languages and simplifying the ticket booking process. This initiative, developed in-house by IndiGo’s digital team in collaboration with Microsoft, has significantly reduced the workload on customer service agents by 75% and improved the efficiency of the booking journey.

“This innovative tool will offer seamless support to our passengers, providing quick and personalised assistance for their travel needs,” said Summi Sharma, Senior Vice President at IndiGo, “reflecting IndiGo’s dedication to technological advancements and customer-centric services.”

Equipped with 1.7 trillion parameters, 6Eskai offers a wide array of services, including ticket bookings, promotional discounts, and trip planning, through both type-written and voice-to-text natural language interactions, setting a new standard in airline customer service.

AI for everyone in India

The instances showcased in the blog reflect a larger story of Microsoft’s dedication to bolstering Indian enterprises through AI, fostering remarkable gains in efficiency and innovation. At the Mumbai tour, I encountered numerous business leaders who testified to the tangible benefits and significant return on investment (ROI) from AI integration. Avinash Raghavendra, President and chief information officer (CIO) of Axis Bank, remarked, “Our AI collaboration with Microsoft not only drives optimized and robust processes but also delivers employee satisfaction by providing the means to be always productive and resourceful.”

Similarly, Anup Purohit, CIO of Wipro, emphasized the transformative impact of generative and foundational AI: “Solutions such as Copilot have aligned with our objective of empowering our teams to achieve more efficient workflows and deliver high quality output. It has driven innovation and reinvention of our processes while helping us render better services to our clients.”

India is gaining attention not only for its output in terms of AI innovation but for the incoming investment it is attracting. During his visit in February 2024, Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) Satya Nadella underscored the company’s dedication to bolstering India’s shift towards an AI-first economy, mirroring the country’s ambition for self-reliance through AI proficiency. Speaking at the Microsoft CEO Connection event in Mumbai, Nadella unveiled the ADVANTA(I)GE INDIA initiative aimed at equipping 2 million Indians with AI skills by 2025, addressing the national skills shortage and positioning India as a frontrunner in the AI domain.

This initiative not only reflects Microsoft’s commitment to closing the AI skills gap but also showcases India as a pivotal center for output and a prime destination for Microsoft’s investment.

“India is uniquely positioned to make the promise of AI a reality,” said Nadella. “We are committed to partnering broadly across the public and private sector to help close the nation’s AI skills gap and create new opportunity throughout the country.” 

Indeed, India’s innovative spirit and synergistic endeavors with Microsoft stand as a powerful testament to AI’s capacity to forge a more efficient, inclusive, and innovative global future. We can expect that India will continue to lead and innovate in the AI domain, punching above its weight on the global stage.

Take the next step in your AI journey

The era of AI is a global opportunity, beckoning us as business leaders to explore, innovate, and lead the way in shaping a future where technology and humanity converge to create a better world for all.

Take the next step in your AI journey by exploring Microsoft AI solutions, diving into The AI Strategy Roadmap, and getting skilled up with Microsoft Learn’s AI learning hub to ensure you’re ready to leverage Microsoft AI to its fullest potential.

Footnotes

¹The Economic Times, India to become USD 5 trillion economy, third-largest by 2027: RBI DG Patra.

²Reuters, India’s AI market seen touching $17 bln by 2027, notes Nasscom-BCG report.

The post India’s AI ambition: Pioneering the tech frontier appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

Explore how to unleash retail team potential with intelligent solutions from Microsoft.

Learn more 

MICROSOFT TEAMSLearn more 

In the race to deliver engaging in-store experiences, Microsoft Teams is uniquely positioned to equip retailers, such as La Vie en Rose and Domino’s, with a single platform to transform their store team’s operations and deliver first-in-class customer experiences. And with the potential to streamline tasks and save valuable time, AI is quickly becoming a critical layer on top of existing communication solutions to help retailers deliver. Even employees are ready and waiting for AI to be introduced, with 65% of frontline workers optimistic about how AI will help them in their job. With Microsoft Teams, you can level up your retail workforce with smarter and simpler experiences for communications and operations in your stores.

Take your retail teams’ productivity to the next level with generative AI 

It’s no secret that store associates can work more effectively when they have the right tools. By harnessing the power of smart solutions in the communication tools they use every day, retailers can not only make their operations more productive but also keep their store communications agile.

We’ve enhanced essential communication tools in Microsoft Teams—like chat, channels, phone calls, and meetings—with Microsoft 365 Copilot. Copilot combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with your data in the Microsoft Graph—your calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings, and more—and Microsoft 365 apps to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet. This fosters a smart workplace that elevates productivity and streamlines information access for retail teams.

In November, we announced Microsoft Copilot Studio, a versatile low-code tool designed to customize Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365. Copilot Studio enables you to extend your own retail data to Copilot, or to build standalone copilots that bring together a set of powerful conversational capabilities from custom GPTs, to generative AI plugins, to manual topics. 

Copilot Studio provides a quick and easy way to create and publish a plugin directly to Copilot for Microsoft 365 via a drag-and-drop low-code approach that includes the logic and data connectivity to answer questions based on your retail data and processes.

Learn more about Copilot in Microsoft Teams.

Target communications and engagement on the frontline 

Reaching the frontline with key information and news can be difficult, both in targeting the right groups and then engaging them with the content once delivered. It especially gets difficult if different communications are being sent to different apps, adding cognitive load onto the frontline to find the right information across multiple communication sources. 

Continuing to deliver on a single destination for frontline communications, we’re excited to announce Copilot in Viva Engage in Teams, available in public preview in January 2024. This Copilot experience uses AI-created conversation starters, prompts, and images to help inspire retail leadership and corporate communications teams to post in frontline communities and increase engagement with store teams right from the same place where they work. And this AI-enhanced communication tool helps frontline retail teams increase the quality of questions being asked with suggested prompts.

Copilot in Viva Engage in Teams speeds up your ability to create impactful and dynamic communications for your organization. Combining this with the power of Teams simplifies your ability to target communications to specific teams, whether at the company, store, or role level. We are excited to share that retail corporate communications teams will soon be able to easily send important announcements like safety policy changes and store sales targeted to frontline employees based on location, department, and job roles from the Teams home experience. These operational announcements will be pinned at the top of frontline workers’ home experience so they will never miss key messages that keep your business running smoothly. This feature in Teams will be generally available in March 2024.

Simplify in-store operations with modern task management

Microsoft Teams helps automate and streamline processes across your organization, keeping all information in one place to simplify frontline workers’ daily work. We’re building on the existing task publishing and automation capabilities in Microsoft Planner, formerly known as the Tasks app in Microsoft Teams.  

Your retail organization will be able to schedule recurring lists within task publishing. With this new capability, you can now choose the cadence of recurring task lists—for example, let’s say every Monday you send a store audit task, then task publishing will automatically take care of scheduling the publication.

Retail organizations will be able to enforce additional rules for a task to be marked as completed, such as uploading photos, completing a form, as well as requiring manager approval before marking a task complete. With this feature, tasks can only be marked as complete once specific conditions are met, ensuring high-quality work across the frontline. 

Task publishing will also allow your organization to create a task that every member of the recipient team must complete. Retailers can use this to publish a training task—for example, health and safety trainings—to designated stores and locations.

These task management features will be generally available in March 2024. Sign up to be notified when these enhancements to Planner are available.  

Streamline on-the ground voice communication    

Teams Phone is a cloud calling service that keeps your entire workforce connected with flexible, reliable, and smart calling—all in Teams. We are excited to announce a new Teams Phone for Frontline Workers offer that will be generally available in February 2024. With Teams Phone, frontline workers can securely communicate and collaborate with customers, teammates, and suppliers through an intuitive and easily customizable solution. This offer can be purchased as an add-on to Microsoft 365 F1 and F3 SKUs for $4 per user per month.¹

Unlock instant push-to-talk for store teams  

Heads-up and hands-free communication is key for real-time collaboration and quick problem-solving in retail settings. To continue to enable seamless store communication, we are excited to announce that Walkie Talkie in Teams will now work with any generic wired headsets on Android. This feature will be generally available starting in February 2024.

To enhance and simplify store communication, frontline workers who use Walkie Talkie in Teams can now choose to automatically listen to incoming messages from any of the channels they have pinned as favorites. With this new feature, users can easily stay connected to multiple channels without needing to switch channels manually. This feature is now generally available.

Meet us at NRF 2024 

Microsoft is committed to empowering retail organizations around the world to modernize the in-store experience. We continue to invest in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams innovations for the frontline, with solutions like Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Teams Phone.  

This week at the National Retail Federation (NRF) 2024, we are announcing new solutions designed to enable store teams to efficiently meet customers’ expectations and improve the retail experience in this new era of AI. We’ll be in New York City for retail’s biggest show January 14 to 16, 2024, on level 3 at booth #4503, conveniently located at the main entrance of the Javits Exhibition Hall. We can’t wait to see you there.  

• Read the Forrester study, The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft 365 For Frontline Workers In Retail.  
• For a deeper dive into our product announcements, read the MTC blog. 
• Transform and unify your frontline workforce with Microsoft Teams. 
• Visit our NRF landing page for more details and guided tours of our solutions. 
• Take our Guided Tour to see how to leverage Planner in Microsoft Teams for your stores. 
• Learn how to power your AI transformation with the Microsoft Cloud for Retail blog. 

¹ Microsoft Teams Phone Standard for Frontline Workers ($4 user/month) will be available as an add-on to Microsoft 365 F1 ($2.25 user/month) and F3 ($8 user/month).

The post Level up your retail workforce with smart, simple solutions from Microsoft Teams appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

Retail is one of the most dynamic and competitive industries in the world, where customer expectations and preferences are constantly evolving. A recent McKinsey report confirms the retail sector has experienced as much disruption in the past five years as it has in the previous 25.¹ Perhaps never before in the history of the industry have we seen every single one of retail’s primary stakeholder groups—customers, suppliers, employees, and investors—simultaneously change their behavior and expectations. According to McKinsey, a retailer’s actions in the next two to three years could position it for success in the next 20.¹ In this environment, retailers are turning to the power of generative AI to provide differentiated value across the shopper journey. Take Walmart, for example. Two days ago, Walmart announced how they’re using Microsoft’s generative AI technology to build engaging new shopping experiences and provide enhanced productivity to store associates. When the world’s largest retailer decides to make big bets on generative AI, it’s clear the stakes are high and the opportunity to provide value is here.²  

Microsoft Cloud for Retail

Connect your customers, your people, and your data

Discover capabilities 

Around the world I’m hearing from retailers who are excited about the potential of AI. The most common question I was asked by retail executives in 2023 was where to start to find the most value. Retailers are looking for ways to begin working with generative AI that will allow them to learn quickly and scale effectively. I’m excited to share new tools that help retailers more easily incorporate AI across the shopper journey. Microsoft has lowered the barriers to building generative AI solutions that improve shopping experiences, support store associates, and enhance retail media campaigns. Through new Microsoft Copilot capabilities in Microsoft products, copilot templates for building applications, and retail data solutions in Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft makes AI implementation more accessible to retailers of all sizes. Retailers can now more easily take the first steps with generative AI.

Let’s look at these new offerings in more detail:

Shopper value

Delight shoppers with more personalized experiences. Retailers can use a copilot template on Azure OpenAI Service to build more individualized shopping experiences across their existing web sites and applications (in public preview).

With applications built using the copilot template, shoppers can engage in helpful and natural conversations that guide them to precisely the goods they need, while saving them time. Generative AI produces experiences that leave shoppers with the confidence they have found the best items. Microsoft Cloud for Retail copilot template pairs the breadth of expressiveness found in a Large Language Model (LLM) with deep knowledge about a retailer’s catalog and expertise. This new approach to commerce comes from advances in generative AI, all built with Responsible AI principles in mind.

Enhance shopping through personalizing marketing with new Copilot capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights (coming soon to public preview).

Our AI-first experience enables marketers to describe the desired marketing outcome in natural language and let generative AI suggest, build, launch, and monitor campaigns in real-time. Transform marketing workflows and improve campaign ROI by uniting business data with Copilot features that deliver outcomes faster and more efficiently. These Copilot capabilities will be available in preview in the first quarter of 2024, with general availability by the third quarter of 2024. Existing Dynamics 365 Customer Insights customers can sign up now for the early access public preview program.

Store associate value

Empower store associates to improve productivity, job satisfaction and customer experiences. Using a copilot template on Azure OpenAI Service, retailers can infuse AI into store operations, better supporting associates (in public preview).

Our copilot template for store operations helps build a generative AI-powered LLM based assistant that enables Q&A from store documentation such as store operating procedures and natural language-based task creation (form filling). Store associates can use natural language to quickly and easily access the information they need in the flow of work, increasing their productivity and efficiency. With this copilot template, retailers can more easily build experiences that enable store employees to quickly get answers to their questions on store operating procedures, HR policies, and benefits. In addition, store associates and managers can save time through natural-language prompt-enabled task creation and assignment.

Using the copilot template, in combination with Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Dataverse capabilities, retailers are empowered to seamlessly connect data across multiple lines of business systems to generate AI driven recommendations and actionable solutions that will help store associates make the right decisions.

Consumer brand value

Provide consumer goods brands with tools to auto-generate and edit campaigns with Retail Media Creative Studio (in preview).

Microsoft is introducing generative AI to the Microsoft Retail Media platform (powered by PromoteIQ) through the launch of Retail Media Creative Studio, a comprehensive, end-to-end banner ad creative solution tailored for retail media, available in preview starting in January 2024. With Retail Media Creative Studio, retailers can unlock new revenue with optimized retail media campaigns across multiple retail media channels, such as the retailer’s owned digital properties and across the open web. The solution optimizes banner campaign performance using AI-powered algorithms and delivers a more personalized shopping experience.

The data solutions providing AI to retail innovation

Make the most of retail data to uncover insights that lead to better shopper journeys with retail data solutions in Microsoft Fabric (in public preview).

One of the greatest, if not the greatest, challenges retailers face today is the need to unify data from disparate systems in order to gain insights from it. We are very excited to offer this industry specific set of capabilities in Microsoft Fabric that enables retailers to accelerate time to insight generation by unifying, enriching, and modeling industry data in Fabric. With seamless data harmonization, cross-application analytics, and AI applications, retailers can unlock the full potential of their data and drive their business forward. By using Fabric, retailers can consolidate relevant retail data from multiple systems into a unified, governed hub providing a secure single source of truth for all data and analytics needs. And, with retail data solutions in Fabric, retailers can use the same copy of data without needing to move it from its original source.

Our connector with Sitecore OrderCloud means that data for three important areas: product, customer, and orders, has been mapped to our industry data model, reducing engineering effort and accelerating time to insights.

Across the Microsoft Cloud, retailers now have multiple options when applying AI to key business outcomes across the shopping journey. From building their own solutions to leveraging the copilot templates, Microsoft Cloud for Retail integrates with retailers’ existing systems, seamlessly connecting a retailer’s customers, employees, and data. In each industry, Microsoft builds unique assets to verticalize the Microsoft Cloud and enable a broad partner ecosystem. Built on a foundation of trust and Microsoft’s Responsible AI principles, retailers can safely and securely unlock productivity across their entire business with Microsoft Cloud for Retail.

See it all at NRF 2024 and beyond

According to AI adoption in Retail, the most recent research Microsoft commissioned with The Futurum Group, 87% of retail companies globally have implemented AI in their store operations. Clearly the adoption of AI is increasing as this new technology brings substantive rewards to organizations. Microsoft is here to connect with you, listen to your needs, and support developing your AI strategy. Learn more at the links below and reach out to a Microsoft representative at any time for conversation.

Join us to hear the latest on how Microsoft is helping customers by attending our sessions at NRF 2024 or listening on-demand after the event: 

• Retail Unlocked: Achieve more with Microsoft: Hosted by Shelley Bransten, Corporate Vice President, Global Retail, Consumer Goods and Gaming industries, Microsoft. Sunday, January 14, 2024, from 1:00 PM to 1:30 PM Eastern Time. Join this interactive session to hear about one retailer’s AI journey to date. Hosted by Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Retail, Consumer Goods & Gaming industries, Shelley Bransten, you’ll also learn about new AI-focused findings from Futurum Research and all new AI capabilities in Microsoft Cloud for Retail that will help power your AI transformation.
• Unlocking true customer-centricity: Optimizing touchpoints across the shopper journey with AI: Hosted by Kathleen Mitford, Corporate Vice President, Global Industry Marketing. Monday, January 15, 2024, from 11:45 AM to 12:15 PM Eastern Time. Generative AI and large language models have captured the attention of executives across industries. While the technology’s use cases seem endless, smart retailers and brands must identify and prioritize the applications of generative AI that will be most valuable to their organization and partner with organizations who will treat their data with the highest privacy standards. Join us to hear how Microsoft is helping organizations large and small maximize their generative AI opportunities safely and responsibly..  
• Unify your data to unlock AI opportunities: Hosted by Martin Kostal, General Manager, Microsoft Industry Clouds. Tuesday, January 16, 2024, from 1:00 PM to 1:45 PM Eastern Time. Retailers are swimming in data all day. Even with sophisticated legacy technologies and cutting-edge data science, the majority of that data goes uncollected. Insights stay hidden—often in plain sight. But that’s starting to change. AI tools are enabling retailers to understand their customers, merchandising, supply chains, operations, and workforces better than ever before. Join us to hear about the myriad insights that retailers are drawing from newfound and increasingly precise data sources to run leaner, smarter stores.   

Additional Microsoft announcements at NRF 2024

• Read the Microsoft 365 blog to learn how to drive AI-enabled efficiency with Microsoft Teams for your retail frontline. 
• Read the blog from Martin Kostal, General Manager, Engineering, Microsoft Cloud for Retail.
• Read the Official Microsoft Blog, “Walmart unveils new generative AI-powered capabilities for shoppers and associates.”
• Read the official Microsoft press release “Microsoft unveils new generative AI and data solutions across the shopper journey, offering copilot experiences through Microsoft Cloud for Retail.” 

Learn more about implementing AI in store operations

• Download the full Futurum Group research report.
• Stay informed about Microsoft Cloud for Retail.
• Follow Microsoft Cloud on LinkedIn. 

¹Retail reset: A new playbook for retail leaders, McKinsey & Company.

²IDC Infographic, sponsored by Microsoft, The Business Opportunity of AI, #US51315823, November 2023.

The post Microsoft introduces new capabilities that help retailers bring AI to the shopper journey and enhance store associate experiences appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

Gain valuable AI insights for your business

Learn more at the National Retail Federation Big Show

Register here 

In addition to solutions powered by Microsoft Cloud for Retail, this vision for the future of retail is spotlighted by new Copilot capabilities for Dynamics 365 applications, including:  

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, providing retailers with AI-powered experiences to transform daily marketing workflows. 
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, providing AI powered guidance for demand planning, streamlining procurement, and enhancing supply chain visibility. 

NRF attendees can learn more about the transformative power of AI across the retail industry by attending two Big Ideas Sessions hosted by Shelley Bransten, Corporate Vice President, Global Retail, Consumer Goods, and Gaming Industries, and Kathleen Mitford, Corporate Vice President, Global Industry Marketing. 

Helping retailers personalize the shopping experience  

Retailers often tell us that they’re under pressure to get marketing and customer experience projects and campaigns to market faster and are asked to do more with less. Yet, the processes and tools they use haven’t evolved to meet this demand.  

Deploying a project to market requires various roles or specialists, costly third-party agencies, and siloed applications to review data and create content. Monitoring results for optimization also becomes a timely and tedious task, having to track down the right people with the right application and the right data. These challenges not only hinder a campaign’s time to market and employee productivity, but can also result in a disjointed customer experience.

It’s not just our customers who are feeling the burden of these challenges. The market is feeling it too. For instance, 63% of surveyed retailers said they hope they can improve their marketing with AI in the next 18 to 24 months.¹ In the age of AI, shouldn’t it be easier to get your campaigns to market?  

We are announcing new Copilot features in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights that will  transform how marketers manage and maintain projects and campaigns, increasing productivity, efficiency, and speed to market. These new capabilities build on Copilot features introduced in the past year, including, but not limited to, the ability to generate content ideas, query customer data using natural language, and create customer segments and journeys using next-generation AI. 

Marketers can kick-start their marketing project by writing their campaign objective in natural language, or by uploading an existing creative brief. The project board is then generated using the prompt or brief, connected organizational data, and previous campaigns in Customer Insights. The project board streamlines and connects all workflows into one place for building and managing marketing assets. 

“These new copilot capabilities in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights will enable us to focus our time and energy in the right places—better informing us on optimization priorities without the need to dig into details manually. That alone saves so much time.” —Hannah Harper, Leatherman, Digital Marketing Manager

From the project board, marketers can view the campaign’s target audience and segments, as well as recommendations from Copilot for additional segments that may not have been previously considered. Selecting a suggested audience segment automatically generates a complementary customer journey, saving marketers time while also helping them deliver a personalized customer experience. 

End-to-end customer journeys containing personalized touchpoints, such as promotional emails or event invitations, are generated using Copilot. Through our partnership with Typeface and its enterprise-grade generative AI capabilities, marketers can produce brand-authentic images across assets, supercharging personalized content for greater impact—all from within Dynamics 365 Customer Insights. Additionally, Typeface helps align content to the organization’s brand guidelines, including themes, fonts, and product images—extracted from a central asset library.

“Every aspect of the enterprise is already being redefined with generative AI, from developer to product to sales experiences. By combining Dynamics 365 Customer Insights with Typeface’s powerful storytelling engine, we’re fundamentally reshaping campaign workflows with generative AI by starting with just a goal. This means personalizing content at an unprecedented scale, bridging the gap between content and data, and ushering in a new era of marketing creativity and productivity.”—Abhay Parasnis, Founder and CEO of Typeface 

These Copilot capabilities will be available in preview in the first quarter of 2024, with general availability by the third quarter of 2024. Existing Customer Insights customers can sign up now for the early access public preview program here.

This is just the beginning; we will be delivering further content curation, journey testing, and metrics monitoring to optimize campaigns. Our vision is that, together, this new AI-first experience will transform how marketers work by reducing the complexities of end-to-end campaign management and enhancing marketer productivity and ROI.

Learn more about our vision in the video below.

Build a real-time retail supply chain 

In 2024, retail supply chains face countless challenges, from labor shortages and increasing costs to complexities across omnichannel retail experiences. Enterprise AI solutions, now readily available for retailers, can power greater efficiency, productivity, and innovation across the supply chain.  

At Microsoft, we aim to deliver new supply chain innovations powered by Copilot to our customers through our open, flexible, and collaborative Microsoft platform; helping organizations to reduce risk, manage inventory, plan with flexibility, and make quick decisions across the whole supply chain.   

New copilot capabilities to improve demand planning 

A retailer’s success hinges on having the right inventory at the right place at the right time, and that starts with successful demand planning. We recently announced new demand planning capabilities in Dynamics 365 in November 2023 that uses AI, machine learning, and external signals to predict demand accurately, and now we are enhancing it with Copilot. This will help planners understand how a forecast was generated and help them find patterns and anomalies. 

Copilot will also help them make sense of complex relationships across datasets using natural language interactions, and it will also assist with the routine tasks of making demand review reports, saving the planners time to focus on high-priority activities. 

Some of our customers, including Domino’s Pizza UK & Ireland, can use the new demand planning capabilities to make smart predictions from the data and insights.

“The demand planning capabilities in Dynamics 365 are helping us make the right decisions to lower wastage, avoid unnecessary deliveries, and be cybersafe.”—Neha Batra, Head of Business Solutions.  

The new demand planning capabilities create a more flexible, simplified, and intuitive user experience. Planners have an increased level of trust and can rely more on the forecast, knowing how it’s generated. The latest demand planning capabilities help reduce excess inventory and increase working capital for retailers.

New Copilot capabilities to improve productivity and proactively mitigate disruptions  

In November 2023, we also announced new Copilot capabilities in preview for Dynamics 365 that enable supply chain teams to take actions based on insights with conversational help while in the flow of work. This helps increase productivity and improved collaboration among employees across the supply chain and other cross-functional teams to proactively mitigate disruptions and further automate their workflows. See the capabilities in action.  

We also added new Copilot capabilities that will enhance inventory visibility and enable businesses to promise orders with improved accuracy, significantly helping brands elevate their consumers’ buying experience.   

In addition, a new copilot capability that helps to streamline procurement is now generally available. Procurement teams can seamlessly handle the purchase order changes in a scalable and efficient manner and assess the impact of changes downstream to production and distribution before making the right decision.   

Generate product enrichment content for e-commerce sites with Copilot 

Informative, story-rich product content can drive customer engagement and sales on e-commerce sites. Creating that content, however, can be time-consuming and challenging. In October 2023, we launched in preview the ability for business-to-business and business-to-consumer online retailers to use Copilot in Dynamics 365 Commerce to generate enriched product marketing content for their websites. This helps to decrease the time it takes to create compelling marketing content, while increasing productivity and increasing the overall number of online orders.

Visit our Microsoft booth at NRF this year to see these innovations in action.  

Discover the future of retail at NRF 2024 

Learn more about Dynamics 365 solutions for the retail industry and retail solutions introduced at NRF 2024. If you are registered for NRF 2024, we invite you to stop by our booth for demos of our solution and attend the following sessions:  

Retail Unlocked: Achieve more with Microsoft: Hosted by Shelley Bransten, Corporate Vice President, Global Retail, Consumer Goods and Gaming industries, Microsoft  

Sunday, January 14, 2024  | 1:00 – 1:30 PM  Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Join this interactive session to hear about one retailer’s AI journey to date. Hosted by Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Retail, Consumer Goods & Gaming Industries, Shelley Bransten, you’ll also learn about new AI-focused findings from Futurum Research and all new AI capabilities in Microsoft Cloud for Retail that will help power your AI transformation.    

Unlocking true customer-centricity: optimizing touchpoints across the shopper journey with AI: Hosted by Kathleen Mitford, Corporate Vice President, Global Industry Marketing   

Monday, January 15, 2024  | 11:45 – 12:15 PM  EST

Generative AI and large language models have captured the attention of executives across industries. While the technology’s use cases seem endless, smart retailers and brands must identify and prioritize the applications of generative AI that will be most valuable to their organization and partner with organizations who will treat their data with the highest privacy standards. Join us to hear how Microsoft is helping organizations large and small maximize their generative AI opportunities safely and responsibly.   

Unify your data to unlock AI opportunities: Hosted by Satish Thomas, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Industry Clouds   

Tuesday, January 16, 2024 | 1:00 – 1:45 PM EST

Retailers are swimming in data all day, every day. Even with sophisticated legacy technologies and cutting-edge data science, the majority of that data goes uncollected. Insights stay hidden—often in plain sight. But that’s starting to change. AI tools are enabling retailers to understand their customers, merchandising, supply chains, operations, and workforces better than ever before. Join us to hear about the myriad insights that retailers are drawing from newfound and increasingly precise data sources to run leaner, smarter stores.    

¹ AI Adoption in Retail Survey, The Futurum Group, 2024 https://aka.ms/FuturumAIinRetail

The post Shaping the future of retail with AI and Dynamics 365 appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

The importance of data in AI-driven retail fuels the algorithms, insights, and personalized experiences that are increasingly integral to success of the modern retailer. The ability to collect, harmonize, and derive meaningful insights from vast amounts of data empowers retailers to make informed decisions, create personalized experiences, and stay competitive. Understanding that data is key to success, we’ve also released retail data solutions in Microsoft Fabric—helping retailers to standardize and enrich raw data with connectors to engage customers more effectively. Read on to learn how you and your employees can maximize benefits from your data.

Microsoft Cloud for Retail

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Optimize shopper experiences with personalization  

Generative AI models have vastly improved the experience of chatting with virtual assistants—providing expert advice and bringing ease and convenience to online shoppers. The copilot template for personalized shopping on Azure OpenAI Service (preview) enables retailers to build tailored shopping experiences that allow consumers to shop using natural language. Online shopping is now akin to consulting with a specialist in a store. Personalized shopping taps into the retailer’s vast expertise and knowledge base to apply across shopping situations with the convenience of anytime, anywhere availability. Using a retailer’s current systems and data, this prebuilt template can be embedded into existing experiences, such as a website or app, making it easier for shoppers to find and purchase the products they want. With the prebuilt copilot template, retailers can offer customers personalized expert advice as well as guide the shopper to find unexpected items and learn more about the retailer.  

The copilot template is designed to be easy for any retailer to use. Its open architecture lets each organization leverage existing investments in commerce, inventory, and personalization solutions to support a wide range of buying environments, including e-commerce sites and mobile apps. Designed to have interactive discussions with shoppers, the copilot template can be adapted to each seller’s brand and values, responds to their questions and facilitates decision-making to create a personalized experience that feels natural and easygoing. 

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Increase productivity and efficiency with copilot for store operations   

Whether associates are long-term employees or seasonal workers, empowering the workforce and optimizing their performance is critical to customer satisfaction and retailer success. With the new generative AI-powered copilot template for store operations on Azure OpenAI Service (preview), retailers can build technology that allows frontline workers to quickly and easily access the information needed for their work day, increasing productivity and efficiency with text and voice commands.  

Retail frontline workers can easily get answers to questions on store operating procedures like how to handle refunds or set up product displays. Using natural language, associates can ask questions about the product catalog to support shoppers, review HR policies and benefits, or complete surveys. Copilot template for store operations enables workers to independently manage issues such as addressing damaged items. For example, with a few prompts, an associate can ask copilot template for store operations for the company’s standard operating procedure for replacing damaged products. In addition to getting the right steps to handle the process, the associate can also create a task to replace products and send an alert through Microsoft Teams to the store manager. Copilot template for store operations eliminates the need for pen and paper, data in multiple systems, or the retail frontline tracking down the store manager for every problem that arises.  

Likewise, the copilot template for store operations helps store managers optimize the work experience for their associates and deliver improved customer experiences. They can ask Microsoft Teams for a summary of key performance indicators (KPIs)—such as sales, inventory, and customer feedback. Using copilot template for store operations, a manager can quickly create tasks and assign associates to address. Copilot template for store operations provides retailers insights and information in the normal flow of work, helping managers and associates increase productivity and responsiveness.

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Gain actionable insights fast with retail data solutions in Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is a complete analytics platform built for the era of AI. It enables the transformation of data into predictive insights, to ensure better business outcomes and reduce costly data replication and movement to support data analysts and data scientists. With these solutions in place, organizations can also automate duplicative tasks resulting in data efficiency and resource management.   The self-serve ability enables organizations to equip everyone in the company with their own access to these powerful analytics. Underscoring all of this is a commitment to help keep data secure and protected in a single source while meeting stringent compliance requirements.  

Retail data solutions in Microsoft Fabric is an industry specific workload that enables customers to accelerate time to insight generation by unifying, enriching, and modelling industry data on Microsoft Fabric​. Organizations can plan, architect, and design data solutions for data governance, reporting, business intelligence, and advanced analytics. Using data definition, formats, and storage enhancement, a standardized data model is created to help organizations derive actionable insights from large volumes of retailer data. Retail data solutions in Microsoft Fabric provide seamless integration across different systems and applications. By establishing a foundation for naming, data classification, and access controls, retailers can be assured effective governance of their data. 

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Sitecore OrderCloud connector enhances your digital capabilities 

Sitecore OrderCloud connector, one of the key capabilities of retail data solutions, gives you a quick and reliable platform to get commerce data onto Microsoft retail industry standard schema. The connector performs transformation and orchestration on top of the data from Sitecore OrderCloud to align with the data model. The connector works across three key data sets:   

1. Products: All the sellable products available in Sitecore OrderCloud. 
2. Customers: End customers who are shopping from your e-commerce portals. 
3. Orders: Customer generated online sales orders.  

The key role of the connector is to get data into the retail data solutions schema, giving users the benefit of access to solutions that are built on top of retail data solutions. Microsoft Power BI reports on sales, products, and customer data solutions can be enabled on top of Sitecore OrderCloud data out of box. 

Using the connector in combination with Microsoft Power Platform and Dataverse capabilities empowers customers to seamlessly connect data across multiple line-of-business systems to generate AI-driven recommendations and actionable solutions that will help store associates make the right decisions. The connector ensures that no personal customer information is transferred when using Dataverse and Microsoft Power Platform capabilities such as Power BI reports and other related solutions. The Power BI reports provide actionable insights on top of data. Each report provides a specific view of data across sales, customers, and products that can help make impactful merchandising, marketing, and supply chain decisions.  

“Sitecore OrderCloud delivers limitless commerce capabilities and opportunities to consolidate commerce channels into a single managed marketplace. The out-of-the-box integration with Microsoft Fabric unlocks the ability to be a forward-looking AI retail organization. Retail organizations can benefit from stateful services, reliable messaging, orchestration, monitoring, and security, while continuing to focus on their roadmap and strategic business objectives.” Steven Davis, Vice President of Engineering Commerce, Sitecore 

Make strategic product decisions with frequently bought together

Lastly with this release, the frequently bought together model is a data-driven tool that empowers retailers to make informed decisions about product placement and promotions. By analyzing point-of-sale (POS) data, frequently bought together identifies the combinations of products that are most often selected and purchased at the same time. This way, retailers can effectively promote cross-selling activity and boost joint sales by placing associated products closer together.  

Frequently bought together analytics enables retailers to: 

• Find the top revenue products and boost cross-sales by putting identified products closer. 
• Check the lowest revenue products and decide which ones to drop from the product catalogue. 
• Measure how past marketing actions, like new shelf layout or promotion performance, affected the sales of each item in a product group by comparing before and after sales revenues when purchased together. 

Learn more

MICROSOFT INTRODUCES PREBUILT AI SOLUTIONS FOR RETAILERSRead the blog 

• Join us at NRF 2024 from January 13 to 16, 2024 in New York City, New York to learn more about Microsoft Cloud for Retail’s cutting-edge AI technologies and how they can optimize your business.
• Join Shelley Bransten at the Microsoft Retail Digital Forum on February 6, 2024 for the How AI Unlocks Value for Retail session to learn about the research and gain insights into what is driving AI transformation among leading retailers.
• To get started, you can sign up here or learn more about our latest capabilities on the Microsoft Cloud for Retail homepage. 

The post Microsoft Cloud for Retail unlocks a new level of productivity with AI appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

It’s important to understand the potential of AI and learn how to make informed decisions about AI adoption and implementation. The benefits of AI in business are more compelling every day. A recent global study by IDC confirms that businesses are eager to adopt AI technology, with 71% of respondents currently using AI tools in their organizations.¹

Even with this momentum, business leaders face challenges when it comes to implementation. Where should you start your organization’s AI transformation?

Transform your business with AI

Learn about AI business strategy and AI for industries

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Learn from Microsoft leaders how to transform your organization with AI

We’ve brought together our AI and industry leaders at Microsoft to share how they think about AI transformation in our video series, Transform Your Business with AI. More importantly, they provide success stories and guidance on how others can align AI technology with their business goals.

To start learning about how AI can transform your business, I recommend you begin by thinking about where your business is today and where it is you want to go. Jessica Hawk, Corporate Vice President, Data, AI, and Digital Applications Product Marketing at Microsoft, will walk you through the key drivers of AI success. She will also provide guidance as you examine what characteristics foster an AI-ready culture.

Whether you lead a healthcare organization or a retail business, the next two topics are top of mind.

1. Responsible AI: Natasha Crampton, Chief Responsible AI Officer, shares principles and procedures followed at Microsoft and how leaders can develop their own AI strategy.
2. Sustainability: Melanie Nakagawa, Chief Sustainability Officer, shares the Microsoft approach to sustainability in the era of AI.

Explore how Microsoft and customers are implementing AI within retail, manufacturing, financial services, and healthcare with our industry-focused videos.

• Retail: Learn how AI is impacting the retail industry with Shelley Bransten, Corporate Vice President of Global Retail, Consumer Goods, and Gaming Industries at Microsoft.
• Manufacturing: Kathleen Mitford, Corporate Vice President of Global Industry Marketing at Microsoft, shares how AI will change the manufacturing industry and how you can partner with Microsoft to prepare your business.
• Financial Services: Bill Borden, Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Financial Services at Microsoft, takes you through some of the biggest obstacles facing the financial services industry and shows how AI can help you drive differentiated outcomes for your business.
• Healthcare: Rob Dahdah, Corporate Vice President of Industry and Partner Sales for the Health and Life Sciences at Microsoft, dives into how AI can make a significant impact on the world of healthcare, from more personalized healthcare to more efficient drug development.

Discover the knowledge and resources to adopt AI in your organization

To complement this video series, we’ve released a full training course on our free learning platform, Microsoft Learn.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this course:

1. What is AI and how is it used in business?

You’ll learn the difference between generative AI, machine learning, and deep learning. Plus, you’ll understand how AI works through examples specific to sales, supply chain, human resources, finance, marketing, commerce, customer service, and project management.

2. How can I be sure AI is adding value to my business?

AI technologies can drive substantial value to organizations. Defining an AI strategy specific to your business is so critical. We’ll walk through how to define your strategy, and we’ll examine what characteristics foster an AI-ready culture.

3. How do I know if my business is using AI responsibly?

At Microsoft, we believe that as organizations and society take steps toward responsible AI, we need to continually evolve to reflect new innovations and lessons from both our mistakes and accomplishments. You’ll learn the six guiding principles to develop and use AI responsibly so you can move confidently in your AI transformation.

4. What steps do I take to implement AI in my organization?

Starting with your AI strategy, this module in the training covers assigning responsibilities and empowering workers and subject matter experts to use AI themselves. You’ll also learn to evaluate and prioritize AI investments and establish AI-related roles and responsibilities.

By the end of the course, you’ll have a solid understanding about the practicalities of AI, how you can use it in your business, and how to evaluate it against the principles of responsibility.

Microsoft Learn

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Continue learning about AI at Microsoft

At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. The rapid rise of advancements in AI and cloud computing make access to technical skills an even more vital part of that mission. Developing proficiency in Microsoft AI technologies empowers you to innovate and accomplish far more than you previously thought possible.  

Today, it’s more important than ever to empower your team to gain the right skills, prove their expertise, and showcase their abilities so you can accelerate implementing AI at scale.

Learn more about generative AI in this training from Microsoft Learn.

¹IDC Infographic, sponsored by Microsoft, The Business Opportunity of AI, IDC #US51315823, November 2023.

The post How to get started with AI for industry and business leaders appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

And this transformation is not just a vision for the future. AI is demonstrating real business value and economic impact for our customers today. In fact, companies have reported significant benefits from using Microsoft AI. Things like cost savings, optimized processes, reduced emissions, and personalized customer experiences.

As every company and organization looks to lead in the new era of AI, we believe there are four imperatives that define business success: customer engagement through AI, AI-empowered employee experiences, reshaping business processes, and bending the curve on innovation.

There are so many examples of organizations across industries turning to AI to launch innovative products, accelerate development time, reimagine data and AI at scale, and transform their work culture. Today I’d like to share how a few are using the power of the Microsoft Cloud and AI technologies to achieve all of this.

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Reinventing customer engagement

Customer loyalty is key to any business’s success, and there’s persistent pressure to personalize and improve the experience people have with brands they love. This is especially true in media and entertainment, for example, as companies are always looking for ways to better connect with their audience and grow market share.

More fans are turning to digital content to connect with the game and the National Basketball Association (NBA) wanted to grow its fan base with a highly customized and comprehensive experience.

“At the NBA, we’ve partnered with Microsoft to revolutionize the fan experience. Through the power of Microsoft’s cloud and AI technologies, we are able to harness the potential of our vast array of data sources and extensive historical video archive,” said Melissa Brenner, NBA Executive Vice President, Digital Media. “This has enabled us to create more personalized and tailored fan experiences, helping drive a 50 percent growth in NBA League Pass subscribers and tripling NBA App content video views from the previous season.”

Enriching employee experiences

While delivering engaging customer experiences is a critical business outcome, there’s another audience that’s just as important: the employees who serve those customers. And AI can create better experiences and empower the employees doing the work behind the scenes.

More and more, enterprise leaders want to help their employees with automated processes, the advantages of conversational AI, and even creative work. Moveworks is filling this need with a conversational AI platform that accurately interprets what employees require, regardless of how they phrase it—and delivers quick, customized responses that reduce interruptions to work.

Thread is on a mission to make it easier for IT technicians to communicate with customers. They used Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to help automate time-draining tasks and developed a new tool that utilizes generative AI models to streamline service requests. With these solutions, Thread helped free up IT service providers to focus on what matters most—delivering incredible service to customers.

Reshaping business processes

Many companies have already built systems that address certain issues for certain functions over time, but they end up with isolated pieces of useful information that can be hard to access and combine. AI can reveal integrated insights that help anticipate and speed up the information teams need by finding and making the right connections.

Heineken has a vision to be the best-connected brewer, and it is always looking for ways technology can help its mission. They’ve been exploring AI to help update their business processes and are now developing internal chatbots to help connect employees with corporate resources, help executives access meaningful financial data, and help employees manage equipment across their supply chain. Heineken is discovering that using AI efficiently can save employee time and mental energy to deal with more significant and creative business problems. 

“Fast fashion” is a term used to describe the mass manufacturing of runway styles quickly and cheaply. However, today’s consumers are increasingly concerned with sustainability and often make their purchasing decisions accordingly. So fashion designers need to find a way to meet demand while reducing waste. I love the story of Fashable, a fashion company based in Portugal. They faced challenges of unsustainable production, excess inventory, and long production cycles. With the help of Microsoft AI, they developed an algorithm to create original clothing designs, helping match customer demand, accelerate market entry, and reduce clothing waste.

Bending the curve on innovation

Companies in every industry are eager to gain any kind of edge to stay ahead of competition. In the financial services industry, we’ve seen that one of the biggest opportunities is data: delivering the right data at the right time, while reducing complexity and increasing flexibility.

As part of our 10-year strategic partnership, Microsoft and the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) are reshaping the future of global finance. Sophisticated analytics and advanced modeling are now a critical success factor for any customer making strategic business decisions – and data is the most meaningful factor in that equation. LSEG is working with Microsoft to bring together our horizontal software capabilities with their industry-specific financial market infrastructure, data, and analytics, enabling customers to realize increased value, faster, with streamlined workflows tailored specifically to their needs. And with this data foundation, LSEG can deliver AI-powered solutions that are even more valuable for financial services organizations – generating insights that are reliable, trusted, and relevant to the task at hand.

Accelerate your AI journey responsibly

It’s clear that AI is transforming every industry and creating new possibilities and challenges for businesses of all sizes. Whether you want to improve your operations, enrich your customer experience, or foster innovation in products, services, or business models, AI can help you reach your objectives and keep you competitive. To thrive with AI, you need a clear vision, a solid strategy, and a reliable partner.

At Microsoft, we’re committed to the progress of AI guided by ethical values and believe AI systems should be responsible by design. We believe AI must be built on a foundation of security, risk management, and trust. We documented our own journey of creating AI principles, tools and best practices and shared our Responsible AI Standard playbook as a resource every customer can use to build their own Responsible AI practices, policies, and processes. Every organization has unique needs and challenges they’re looking to address with AI, and resources like the Responsible AI Standard can help you accelerate your journey.

So, how could AI help your organization? How can you save time, create better experiences, or realize new insights for your business? 

As a first step, we suggest you explore the five pillars of AI success, where you can find out how to plan and implement a successful AI strategy based on insights and best practices.

Next, build your AI skills and capabilities with this learning path, which provides business leaders with the information and tools to implement AI in their organizations. It covers how to plan, strategize, and grow AI projects in an ethical manner, so it’s a great resource.

Beyond the insights and all the stories shared here, you can also check out the Official Microsoft Blog for more information on the business opportunity of AI. The blog discusses how AI can help organizations drive economic value and solve their challenges.

We’re here to support you in your AI innovation with resources, guidance, and tools. Now the only question is, are you prepared to accelerate your AI journey?

The post AI transformation in action—how organizations are innovating today appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

It also changed the conversations Microsoft customer-facing teams were having as organizations scrambled to exploit the technology. There are very few customer conversations and major projects where some form of generative AI does not have a part to play. 

Microsoft teams have worked hard to advise customers on the best way forward and there have been lessons learned from all sides. Conversations are now starting to change, however. They are moving away from being primarily focused on ‘What can we do with generative AI?’ toward ‘How should we approach generative AI?’. 

There are some lessons that have been learned in customer interactions that are now being applied to projects to maximize the return on investment for our customers. Each of these four areas you may wish to give consideration to as you explore possibilities within your organization. 

1. Be clear on the problem 

There can be a temptation to see generative AI as if it were a ‘new toy’ waiting to be played with. It is critical however to be focused on the problem you are trying to solve and to use this to ‘paint the vision’ of what you want to achieve. 

An approach that can work well is to identify several candidate initiatives or use cases where generative AI may be able to help. Examining these more closely could reveal that there are other ways to solve some of them. There may also be some that you can cluster together because they could warrant similar approaches to address their needs. 

Prioritizing based on likely business impact versus the effort required is an excellent way to determine which use case, or use cases, you should start with. This is a technique Microsoft Industry Architects use with customers engaging with both technical and business teams at the same time. Placing each use case on a simple four-quadrant matrix with ‘Effort’ on the x-axis and ‘Impact’ on the y-axis gives a simple yet effective visualization approach to setting priorities. 

When considering impact, consider things like speed or time saving, improved decision making, and cost savings but also consider how long it will take to reap the benefits. When considering effort, think about the time and money you would need to invest to achieve the desired outcome while being conscious of the different systems and personas that would be involved. 

Once you have determined your target use case or use cases, you must be clear about what ‘good’ looks like. This means determining the metrics and values by which you will measure your success. Using quantitative terms can deliver real focus. Your metric could be based on time, effort, or money—but try to make it as measurable and meaningful as possible. 

2. Work inside-out 

As a customer-centric organization, it might feel counter-intuitive to focus internally first. With new innovative technologies like generative AI, this is a great way to try out the technology and your approaches on a ‘friendly’ audience—your own internal teams—before applying to your external customers. 

This also acts as the foundation for a roadmap of projects and initiatives all centered around generative AI. You can think of this roadmap in three phases—which you could align to a ‘Crawl-Walk-Run’ approach. 

Phase 1: Crawl

Use cases inside the organization

This focuses on ‘human in the loop’ reviews of content that is generated. In a retail and consumer goods environment example use cases might include: 

• Summarization and analysis—call center and customer interaction summarization. 
• Categorization—knowledge management and internal communications. 
• Content generation—creating product images for your e-commerce platform or creating product descriptions based on multiple inputs. 

Phase 2: Walk

Use cases that directly interact with employees and customers

In this phase, you may have human supervision of multiple use cases, each providing information to help the employee or customer, human, make better-informed decisions. Retail and consumer goods examples might include: 

• Summarization and analysis—summarizing product reviews, product descriptions, and specifications. A great example of this is how CarMax is creating their used car listings—saving 11 years of content generation effort. 
• Categorization—analyzing social media trends, sentiment analysis, or making product design recommendations. 
• Content generation—personalized user experience or marketing campaign content generation. 

Phase 3: Run

Increased automation 

This final phase focuses on new product offerings or automation that you might provide as direct interaction with your customers. Examples in a retail or consumer goods setting could include: 

• Summarization and analysis—call-center automation and the contextual automation of customer-facing business processes. 
• Categorization—automating the creation of product descriptions for your commerce platform considering consumer feedback. 
• Content generation—automated creation of personalized marketing and brand content. 

3. Be business (problem) led 

Prioritizing use cases based on effort versus impact is likely to ensure you are maximizing your focus on a problem that can deliver real value for your business. ‘Painting the vision’ of what you are trying to achieve remains key here. 

Ongoing input from business teams remains key—like all initiatives where technology plays a major part, the most successful initiatives tend to be where technology and their business counterparts work most closely—all focused on the specific business problem. 

In any technology-focused initiative, people, processes, and technology all need to be considered together and generative AI is no different. Consequently, it is important to not ignore specific elements. For example, as part of your work focused on each use case you should ensure you: 

• Determine the business process associated with your use case. Understand the triggers that will initiate it along with the points of interaction with different systems and personas. 
• Establish clarity on the personas that interact with the process but also understand who will be impacted when your use case is successfully delivered and used in the business environment. 
• Establish how personas who need to be involved will interact with the process—establish when and how they will need to be notified of interaction or approval they need to undertake. This is especially important when considering the responsible AI principle of accountability. 
• Look carefully at your use case from a responsible AI perspective. Using tools like the Microsoft Responsible Impact Assessment could accelerate things for you here. 
• Change management should be examined carefully. Understanding the personas impacted is essential to aid this. Given how new generative AI is and the large amount of information in the media there are sensitivities that may require careful handling. Again, careful application and consideration of the Microsoft responsible AI principles of fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability will help you in this regard. 

4. Equip yourself (to follow fast) 

It is good to be excited about the potential of generative AI—according to McKinsey the productivity it could add to the global economy equates to $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually.² These numbers are significant given that in 2021 the GDP of the United Kingdom was $3.1 trillion. Consequently, it is important to be able to innovate using this technology.   

To do this, you need to build skills inside your own organization to be able to deliver use cases quickly. This means nurturing your own teams and in-house capabilities. 

It could be very tempting to adopt a ‘fast follower’ approach where if you see a competitor launch a generative AI-powered solution that aids their customers you rapidly follow with something similar—or perhaps even better. 

There is nothing wrong with this as a strategy, but it needs the in-house skills and experience to have to be nurtured over time to have the capability to deliver against this. Delivering use cases you have prioritized and innovated against is one of the best ways to nurture the in-house skills you need. 

By reaching 100 million users in 64 days, ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer application in history.³ This potentially sets the scene for generative AI to become the fastest-growing technology category ever seen. 

While the overall space in terms of possibilities and benefits is likely to evolve rapidly, looking carefully at these four areas will help your organization learn while effectively harnessing the power of generative AI to deliver value for your business. 

Learn more

• Microsoft Cloud for Retail
• Generative AI will revolutionize Revenue Growth Management 
• “What’s my generative AI strategy?” Microsoft is helping consumer goods brand marketers embrace the era of AI 
• How next-generation AI and digital tools transform the retail frontline 
• Microsoft’s responsible AI principles 
• CarMax puts customers first with car research tools powered by Azure OpenAI Service 
• Welcoming the generative AI era with Microsoft Azure 
• Generative AI transforms business processes 

¹ The Guardian, ChatGPT reaches 100 million users two months after launch, February 2023.

² McKinsey Digital, The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier, June 2023.

³ Reuters, ChatGPT sets record for fastest-growing user base—analyst note, February 2023.

The post From discussion to deployment: 4 key lessons in generative AI appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

Organizations like 3M, Prada Group and Campari have been testing copilot features in Dynamics 365 and Power Platform firsthand, while General Motors, Visa, KPMG, AGL, Data #3, Bupa, NAB, Powerlink Queensland, Rest Super and Suncorp are now part of the Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program. Our collaboration with IBM is helping clients accelerate the deployment of generative AI with its new Azure OpenAI Service offering, and we are enabling thousands of organizations like PepsiCo, Vodafone and Voya Financial with Azure cloud services through our expanded partnership with Oracle. To empower employees across 34 countries, Grupo Bimbo developed a solution with an integrated copilot in two weeks to help prevent non-compliance and save time when asking questions about company policies. All of Microsoft’s AI-powered copilots are backed by our Copilot Copyright Commitments to extend IP and legal protection to enterprise customers who use these services, building upon our AI Customer Commitments.

Helping healthcare professionals and providers focus on patient care and support through secure data automation and training

By securely centralizing its data in an AI-powered intelligent data platform on Azure, Mercy is able to use generative AI to help patients schedule appointments more efficiently and better understand their lab results. Mayo Clinic is deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot to ease the burden of administrative demands on healthcare providers so they can focus on patient care, while Duke Health is partnering with Microsoft to responsibly and ethically harness the potential of generative AI and the Microsoft Cloud to redefine the healthcare landscape. To speed up care and improve patient experiences, MultiCare has automated its medication reconciliation process and increased efficiency by 175% with help from Microsoft and partner 3Cloud. By consolidating data such as lab results, medications and plan coverage in the cloud, Blue Shield of California is making services more accessible to members while reducing the cost of care. With help from Healthanea, France-based insurance company AXA is connecting hospitals, pharmaceuticals, health tech solutions and insurers to provide patients with reliable and accurate health information while protecting sensitive health data through the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. Paige and Microsoft are collaborating to transform patient care by building the world’s largest image-based AI to detect cancer with higher accuracy. To ensure patient confidentiality and automate threat reporting, Hamad Medical Corporation is working with Mannai to proactively detect and respond to cyber threats while providing real-time visibility to its executives. Sanofi is improving training and collaboration for employees in different locations with HoloLens 2 — saving two weeks of training time for its production line operators and meeting increased demand for pharmaceuticals.

Empowering government workers, non-profit volunteers, students and teachers to expand social impact and save costs with data and AI

Working with AltaML, the Government of Alberta has built an AI-powered tool to help firefighting duty officers become more confident in predicting and sustainably managing the risk of wildfires, creating the potential to save up to $3 million in annual operating costs. In the U.K., Aberdeen City Council is making it easier for workers to access social care data within minutes to provide faster and more accurate service to vulnerable citizens while saving more than $2 million annually on manual data collection. To help ensure seamless service to citizens and prevent cyberattacks to critical infrastructure like traffic light systems and utilities, the City of Brampton is helping its IT team improve its cybersecurity maturity and reduce attack alerts by 70% with help from partner Difenda. To quickly scale the creation of thousands of audiobooks and reduce volunteer labor, nonprofit Project Gutenberg is making its e-books more accessible to people with visual impairments by using text-to-speech capabilities in Azure AI and Microsoft Fabric. German-based Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald is using AI to help research students pre-classify wildlife images in two days instead of 30 — saving 95% on the cost of wildlife monitoring and distance measurement. Working with teachers to offer more individualized support to students, New York City Public Schools has developed a secure, custom AI-powered teaching assistant on Azure OpenAI to answer questions and give real-time feedback.

Providing financial services employees and customers with AI capabilities for more meaningful and personalized interactions

Ally Financial launched a proprietary platform as its foundation for generative AI innovation across the company, including live summarization of customer service calls so employees can spend more time focusing on customer interactions. With Azure OpenAI, Swiss investment firm Vontobel is boosting employee productivity in programming and data analysis, while automatic payments company Sem Parar is responding intelligently and contextually to customer inquiries to help them resolve their questions more quickly. Emirates NBD is empowering more than a thousand developers with its coding assistant leveraging the capabilities of GitHub Copilot X, while automating repetitive tasks and content generation for employees using Microsoft 365 Copilot. MetLife is helping pet parents access health records and connect with veterinary technicians more easily through its app built with AI-powered search and machine learning capabilities. With a focus on making financial services more accessible in Qatar, CWallet has saved $1 million by building its secure and compliant fintech platform on Azure to meet data regulations in the Middle East, and now plans to explore AI capabilities to simplify customer transactions.

Equipping manufacturing workers with AI-driven data and insights to improve customer support and streamline complex operations

Using Azure OpenAI, electrical equipment manufacturer ABB is integrating generative AI into its platform and applications to provide industry executives, specialists and engineers with real-time insights for better decision making and increased productivity. To reduce waiting time for customers, Dubai-based BMW Group importer AGMC is building an AI solution to more quickly locate and transport vehicles from its largest service center. By creating a scalable AI platform in Azure, Swedish steel manufacturer Epiroc is helping automate complex processes for its global employees to ensure consistent quality of its products, increase efficiency and reduce waste. Printer and imaging company Lexmark has improved its technician support efficiency by 20% with AI-driven predictive modelling, contributing to a 20% increase in customer satisfaction ratings. Xiaomi has developed an AI service bot with Power Virtual Agents to handle customer questions more efficiently and is better using Azure Translator to quickly generate product manuals in multiple languages. Indian textile company Arvind is leveraging the integrated AI capabilities of Power Apps to reduce sampling errors by 90%, production errors by 70% and order turnaround time by 30%.

Enhancing employee productivity and providing customers with AI-enhanced solutions across professional services 

Lumen Technologies is empowering employees across organizations with Microsoft 365 Copilot, making it easier for customer service teams to access repair manuals and helping sales teams summarize actionable steps from customer communications. In France, consulting firm Arthur D. Little is unifying its complex, unsorted data while maintaining data confidentiality and maximizing human capital — helping its consultants prepare for client meetings faster and curate presentation content in 50% less time. Jacobs Solutions is making it easier for staff to access and share high-quality data by integrating Microsoft Fabric with its end-to-end platform for seamless data management and advanced AI capabilities. INSPIRE Environmental is reducing costs and client turnaround time for image analysis of complex ocean data using Azure AI and machine learning. By leveraging Azure OpenAI, Orca Security is speeding up response times to customers and increasing data security while meeting regulatory compliance, Amadeus is working with Microsoft and Accenture to assist corporate travelers with trip logistics through its interactive assistant — as well as building a plug-in for Microsoft 365 Copilot, and professional services firm Atera is helping IT technicians focus on high value work while improving efficiency by 10x with its AI-powered platform.

Today’s AI advancements have also generated new opportunities for digital natives to build upon their cloud-first strategies and shape the future of industry. To combat and identify cyber financial crime behaviors, SymphonyAI developed an AI assistant to help investigators securely and automatically collect, collate and summarize financial and third-party information. By applying AI capabilities across thousands of interactions each day, CallMiner is unlocking insights that empower organizations with a better understanding of the customer journey. Striving to be a leader in empathetic personal intelligence, Inflection AI is developing an AI chatbot that helps people accelerate development while reducing downtime. Building upon its cloud-based solution on Azure, Elastic is giving customers more focused answers to search queries by combining internal company knowledge with context from actual documents. With Azure OpenAI and Azure Cognitive Services, DeepBrain AI is cutting down chatbot development time and reducing manual processes while increasing language understanding and translation capabilities; while Commerce.AI has already started driving up to 50% increases in productivity for clients with its consumer sentiment analytics solutions.

We have a collective opportunity to put generative AI to work to help solve the biggest challenges facing organizations, industries and society today. Microsoft is helping customers and partners prioritize work and pragmatically innovate with generative AI to meet their most pressing business needs. From our unwavering commitment to building products responsibly and securely to how we engage with our customers and partners, I am proud of the trust we have forged along the way. Whether you are leveraging our copilot capabilities across the Microsoft Cloud, working with our partners to apply industry-specific cloud and AI solutions or seeking to co-innovate and co-develop to build custom solutions, I look forward to working alongside you to accelerate your AI transformation.

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