In a world where technology evolves at breakneck speed, it’s astonishing to realize that many businesses still rely on systems built decades ago. Imagine this: 220 billion lines of COBOL code are still running in production today, powering critical operations in industries ranging from finance to government. These systems, often maintained by developers who are now in retirement homes, underscore a stark reality—our modern economy is deeply intertwined with aged technology. This reliance on legacy systems poses significant risks and challenges, yet it also highlights the resilience and longevity of COBOL. As we forge ahead into the future, the question remains: how long can we sustain this dependence on the past?  

Innovations like generative AI are quickly becoming the baseline for how organizations differentiate. From companies like the Volvo Group using Microsoft Azure AI and Microsoft Azure AI Document Intelligence to streamline their invoice and claims process (saving Volvo employees about 850 hours a month) to Medigold Health using Azure OpenAI Service to automate administrative tasks for clinicians giving them time to focus on patient care.

Organizations are sensing that if they don’t truly transform, they risk being left behind and missing the AI wave. “AI is redefining work and it’s clear we need new playbooks,” said Ryan Roslansky, CEO of LinkedIn. “It’s the leaders who build for agility instead of stability and invest in skill building internally that will give their organizations a competitive advantage and create more efficient, engaged, and equitable teams.”

Innovation requires transformation and modernization of your business across people, process, and technology

Setting a strong cloud foundation is paramount for organizations striving to achieve superior differentiation. However, migrating to the cloud isn’t the end point, it is merely the starting point and a pathway to further improvements. Continuous cloud migration and modernization make it significantly easier for organizations to deliver successful transformation initiatives and be future-ready.

In fact a 2024 Forrester study states that, “Organizations must increasingly adopt a mindset of continuous modernization to keep pace with shifting customer expectations, drive innovation, and fuel profitable growth. Just moving to the cloud is not enough: Modernization, incorporating advances like generative AI (GenAI), is playing a critical role in driving competitive advantage.”¹

Continuous modernization is an ongoing process that features a clear technology strategy built around innovation and employee training, integrated key metrics tied to business outcomes, and upgrades to your technology stack powered by the right strategic partnerships.

But there are challenges and requirements standing in the way of continuous modernization

Many businesses recognize the need to take this sort of approach to modernization: according to a 2023 Forrester survey, 89% of decision-makers said their firm plans to increase or at least maintain their current application modernization investments over the next year to achieve key business priorities and address modernization gaps. However, only one in five respondents said their firm has already begun to overcome foundational barriers in its application modernization journey to bring critical value back to the business.

Why? For one, many legacy systems can’t support the requirements of modern tech like AI-powered applications, leading to excessive manual processes and clunky stopgap measures. In fact, 53% of business decision makers (BDMs) say that operations are simply too slow at their firms to take the next step in their application modernization journey according to the Forrester survey.

Once organizations get to the implementation phase of modernization, 48% of survey respondents say that they lack required IT skills, which can make it difficult to to plan and execute holistic modernization, and they also have a hard time filling employee tech skill gaps.

So how can businesses best position themselves to mitigate these challenges and achieve modernization success? Earlier, I mentioned that continuous modernization is an ongoing process that features a clear technology strategy built around innovation and employee training, integrated key metrics tied to business outcomes, and upgrades to your technology stack powered by the right strategic partnerships.

How to think about modernization

Modernizing applications is a transformative journey that requires careful planning and strategic decision-making to balance immediate operational needs with long-term goals.

Organizations must begin by thoroughly assessing their current technical landscape, business objectives, industry trends, and internal capabilities before selecting the most appropriate modernization path—whether that’s using managed platform as a service (PaaS) services for maximum cloud benefits, containerizing applications with Azure Kubernetes Services, reimagining applications as cloud-native services, or using Azure’s hybrid capabilities to evolve at your own pace. The right approach depends on your specific circumstances and constraints, with options ranging from incremental improvements for established systems to comprehensive application refactoring for organizations seeking full cloud advantages.

Ultimately, a well-executed Azure modernization strategy does more than just update technology, it liberates IT teams from routine maintenance tasks, allowing them to focus on innovative initiatives that drive competitive advantage and business growth in an increasingly digital marketplace.

Azure can support your continuous modernization process at each step along the journey

We understand that navigating any transformation project can be daunting, but Azure helps companies modernize every day by offering comprehensive guidance, expert help, cost-saving strategies and tools, and more. Embracing Azure’s managed app and data PaaS lets you automate manual tasks and streamline and standardize development processes—empowering your developers and IT teams to be more productive and focused on innovative solutions for your customers.

Understanding the state of your IT estate

Any cloud migration and modernization project starts with getting a consolidated view of app, data, and infrastructure to understand your IT estate.

This can be a daunting first step, with applications siloed in different parts of your organization that are hard to understand together. Through our Solution Assessment Program, we provide a robust set of resources that enable you to run a comprehensive assessment of your IT estate. By streamlining your first steps, you can focus on creating a cohesive strategy and commencing your modernization projects.

Use outcome-aligned technical skilling to help your employees operate with new paradigms

By equipping teams with the right skills, businesses can unlock the full potential of modernized applications, ensuring successful transformations that drive measurable business outcomes. Azure offers extensive skilling workshops and tools for IT pros, developers, technical managers, and others that teach employees at every level of your organization how new technologies impact them and their work.

These role- and scenario-based trainings are easy to use for busy IT and developer teams and allow them to quickly understand and use their new tools to build AI-powered modernized apps. Skilling can be the difference between transformative, modernized applications and partially implemented, ineffective initiatives.

Working with Azure to modernize means factors that often lead to success are built into the process, allowing you and your team to focus on innovating.

“I think it has been a very well-rounded partnership. We’ve learned how to work in lockstep and be productive as we work together,” says Sahil Gupta, NBA Senior Vice President and Head of Application Development. “We’ve learned how to better utilize Microsoft Cloud and the resources and data systems that exist at Microsoft. We are committed to staying current with innovative technology like Web 3.0 and metaverse—bringing that knowledge into the NBA has been paramount.”

Wherever you are on your digital transformation journey, we want to help you take the next step

Whether you’ve already begun your cloud journey or are planning to commence soon, Azure can help you actualize your transformation vision regardless of your cloud approach—whether hybrid, single, or multi-cloud.

Microsoft has a robust partner ecosystem of Azure specialized partners that support organizations in their continuous modernization efforts.

Modernize for AI Innovation

Accelerate app and data estate readiness for AI Innovation with Microsoft Azure.

Learn more

¹ “Checklist: Steps To Operationalize AI Innovation Through Application Modernization,” Forrester, June 2024

The post Accelerate AI innovation and business transformation: Scaling AI transformation with strategic cloud partnership appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

The skills gap is widening, and it is our collective responsibility to bridge it. Business leaders and professionals are exploring ways to build and enhance critical skills within their teams, and Microsoft is leading the charge. 

In addition to launching ambitious skill-building initiatives such as the upcoming Microsoft AI Skills Fest, we’re also eager to spotlight innovative organization like Founderz, a groundbreaking online learning platform that has gone from a bold idea to a leader in AI skilling in just a few years. Their story is worth sharing not only because of their emerging role in ensuring the workforce is prepared for the future, but because it’s a testament to the power of innovation, perseverance, and the impact of just one company believing in a vision.  

One “yes” can change everything 

Co-founders Anna Cejudo and Pau Garcia-Mila had a simple but powerful idea: what if online business education could capture the depth, collaboration, and networking of the world’s top business schools—but in a way that was scalable, accessible, and built for the AI-powered future? 

“We felt there is still a big gap between the experience we have when we go to an on-site business school—where you meet the best professors, the best content—and the way we learn online,” explained Pau Garcia-Mila, Co-Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder.

They spent years building the technology behind Founderz, investing in AI-powered learning models that would make online education engaging, interactive, and deeply effective. But by 2023, they were at a breaking point. Funding had run out, and they needed a breakthrough.

In a final effort, they sent three emails to companies at the forefront of AI—hoping one of them would see what they saw: a future where AI education was truly transformative. Only Microsoft responded. 

Founderz was accepted into the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub, which provided access to industry-leading AI services, expert guidance, and essential technology to supercharge their growth. Entering the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub at Tier 4 also unlocked USD150,000 in Microsoft Azure credits, enabling the company to scale their platform, refine their AI-powered learning model, and start delivering high-quality AI education at scale. 

Today, Founderz itself is helping change lives.

“In 2024, we had roughly 10,000 users learning AI with Founderz,” recalled Anna Cejudo, co-CEO and co-founder. “By the end of the year, we were at 50,000. And now, by the beginning of March, we reached 100,000 users training in AI. The real revolution isn’t AI—it’s education,” added Anna, highlighting the fundamental role of learning in driving change. They’ve also become a Microsoft Training Services Partner, making the decision to offer training exclusively on Microsoft AI technology.  

AI skilling done differently 

Founderz is far from being just another online course provider. Pau, Anna, and their growing team are rethinking how AI is taught by blending structured learning with real-time collaboration, personalized AI-powered support, and a hands-on approach to applying AI in real-world scenarios. 

At the heart of the Founderz learning experience are high-quality, cinematic-style lectures. Unlike traditional online courses that rely on static, slide-based presentations, Founderz films its courses in a MasterClass-style format, featuring top AI experts from Microsoft and beyond. This approach allows learners to hear directly from the people shaping the future of AI. 

Expert content in student’s native language 

But Founderz goes beyond delivering engaging content—it’s about accessibility. A core mission is to provide top-tier AI education in students’ native languages. Next-generation lip-syncing technology ensures that learners experience AI-powered content seamlessly, without language barriers.

“I can watch a Responsible AI class from Microsoft’s Mihaela Vorvoreanu in my language,” says Pau Garcia-Mila. “She speaks in first person, saying, ‘When we built this Responsible AI model at Microsoft.’ I’d love to be able to learn from the source in my mother tongue.”

Small group collaboration  

While putting “thousands of people in a virtual room” enables Founderz to pay the best professors at a lower per-student cost, the company also sought to build a platform that supported meaningful collaboration. AI-powered tools match students into small, diverse learning circles, where they tackle real-world AI challenges, share insights, and build lasting professional networks. 

Multilingual student support around the clock 

To further support its rapidly growing user base, Founderz’ team of AI-powered teaching assistants or “Fellows” provide real-time multilingual support, allowing learners to receive help in their native language while keeping operations efficient for the human support team.  

As Pau Garcia-Mila explained, “The Fellows are speaking any language in the world, but our human team sees everything in English,” ensuring seamless interaction across different languages. 

These AI-powered teaching assistants provide real-time feedback, analyze student interactions, and escalate complex questions to human instructors when needed. Whether a learner is a complete beginner or an experienced professional, Founderz ensures they receive the support they need to succeed. 

Education means opportunity

Founderz’ journey from a bold idea to an emerging AI skilling leader is proof that AI education is more than just accessing information—it’s about unlocking potential. Its pioneering efforts continue to inspire countless organizations to embrace AI education and drive meaningful transformation worldwide.

As Anna Cejudo puts it, “Education means opportunity, and if we can deliver high-quality education to as many people as possible, we’re giving them the chance to change their lives and control their futures.” 

At Microsoft, we couldn’t agree more. Microsoft’s mission has always been about creating technology that empowers others to innovate and solve real-world problems. This holds true in the age of AI. Our commitment to skilling is not just about technology adoption, it’s about people development. Over the past year, Microsoft has trained and certified over 23 million people across more than 200 countries in digital skills, with the goal of ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to succeed in a world where AI will be commonplace and a natural extension of everything we do.  

Unlock the future—Join the Microsoft AI Skills Fest 

As part of our ongoing investment in global skilling, Microsoft is bringing AI skilling to everyone with the Microsoft AI Skills Fest—a global event designed to bring together customers and partners, tech and business professionals, and AI enthusiasts to help build the skills we all need to thrive in the AI economy.  

Beginning April 8, 2025, we’re kicking off the fun with an attempt to set a GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the most users to take an online multi-level artificial intelligence lesson in 24 hours. After that, we’re inviting everyone to continue building their skills with 50 days to explore Microsoft’s AI apps and services.  

Let’s make history together.

Microsoft AI Skills Fest

A global event designed to bring learners across the globe together to build their AI skills

Register now

¹IDC InfoBrief: sponsored by Microsoft, 2024 Business Opportunity of AI, IDC# US52699124, November 2024.

The post Founderz: Transforming AI education to unlock opportunity appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

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

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

Developing crucial AI skills for organizational transformation

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

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

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

Sharing highlights from our AI learning experience

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

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

Here’s what we learned.

1. Give space for exploration

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

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

2. Make learning fun

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

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

3. Provide clear, structured learning paths

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

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

4. Make it role specific

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

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

5. Start with foundations

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

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

6. Have a plan to update the content regularly

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

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

7. Drive awareness and continued adoption

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

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

8. Set clear guidelines for responsible use

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

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

9. Let employees learn from each other

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

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

10. Leverage existing resources

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

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

AI learning hub on Microsoft Learn

Get the skills to power your AI transformation

Get started

Building a foundation for the future of AI skilling

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

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

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

When Microsoft released Copilot in March 2023, our customers had questions. They wanted to know how they could use Copilot to be more productive at work and in their personal lives. They were curious how to use Copilot within Microsoft 365 applications, like Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams, and how to leverage Copilot for developers, data scientists, and security professionals.

To answer these questions and more, we created the Copilot learning hub in May 2024. I recently asked Dona Sarkar and Dan Wahlin, Microsoft Principal Cloud Advocates—and members of the learning hub team—to share some of their stories about creating this powerful resource.

The Copilot learning hub is “designed to meet learners wherever they are along their learning and adoption journey,” said Dona, “from understanding and using copilots, to customizing them with their own data, and, finally, building their own copilot.” The learning hub caters to technical audiences and ensures that each learner accesses content that is tailored to their learning goals. These resources augment the content available on the AI learning hub, which is designed for both technical and non-technical learners.

These goals are grouped into four task-based Microsoft Learn Official Collections—understand, adopt, extend, and build – providing content specific to each stage of the learning journey. Each collection contains a variety of training modules, documentation, and videos. Learners can even access content that is applicable to specific tech roles, such as administrators, data analysts, and developers.

One learner favorite on the hub is the video library, which provides Copilot instructional content and customer use cases. According to Dan Wahlin: “People love to see what’s possible and the benefits from using a copilot, so our videos focus on that angle. We show how a copilot makes both personal and work life easier and more productive, how creativity is enhanced, and how people can get started and immediately experience these benefits themselves.”

Dona adds that the videos demonstrate the diverse applications of Copilot across Microsoft products and services. “People share their favorite Copilot use cases and how they leverage Copilot in various scenarios,” she said. “This approach makes the content more relatable and engaging by featuring stories from a wide range of professionals.”

Check out this video to learn how cultural shifts and human factors play a crucial role in the successful implementation of AI technology like Copilot.

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Dona shared her own story about how learning a new programming language has changed now that she can rely on Copilot to assist her with her learning. Recently, she used GitHub Copilot as a coding coach to learn Python after working in C# for 20 years. Dona recalls it took her a full year to learn JavaScript years ago, but only one month to learn Python using Copilot. “That’s a real game changer. Imagine how Copilot can help expert and novice programmers alike gain new skills and do their jobs better,” she said. This is the true promise of the Copilot learning hub—putting expert content to work for you so you can excel using Copilot.

With all the excitement around Copilot, we continue to provide new resources for learners. “We’ve received great feedback on the Copilot learning hub from learners. They’ve expressed how they appreciate the comprehensive resources and real-world examples available,” Dan said. “They’ve also provided us with great feedback that we’re consistently applying to continue to take the Copilot learning hub to the next level.”

Erica Woods, Director of Contractor Programs & Philanthropy and Principal at Apex Systems in Tampa, FL, has completed several modules and videos showcased on the learning hub. “I appreciate several things in the Copilot learning hub,” Erica said, “including insights on different ways to apply the technology that are easy to build directly into my day-to-day, the bite-sized chunks the training segments are delivered in, demo-style learning, the fun and conversational style of the videos, and the variety of topics included.” 

So, what’s next? These are some new resources you can expect to see in the coming months, each designed to further streamline your workflow and enhance your Copilot experience:

• In the weeks leading up to Microsoft Ignite, you’ll see new content on the “agentification” of Copilot. What are agents? They are copilots that can act independently, triggered by events—not just conversation—enabling you to automate and orchestrate complex, long-running business processes with less human intervention. For example, an “order taker” copilot can handle the end-to-end order fulfillment process—from taking the order, to processing the order and making intelligent recommendations and substitutions for out-of-stock items, to shipping to the customer.
• We are also working on stories showcasing how Microsoft customers and partners are helping their customers use Copilot, particularly in specialized industries like finance, manufacturing, and others.

Coming up: Get AI ready: Discover AI skill-building with Microsoft Training Services Partners

In our next Get AI ready blog, discover how Microsoft Training Services Partners (TSPs) are helping organizations worldwide build AI skills and stay competitive. Learn about the benefits of AI-powered tools and services, and how TSPs provide customized training plans to ensure your teams are AI-ready. Read inspiring stories from Sulava, Skillsoft, and Koenig Solutions, and find out how they are transforming businesses with AI. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to upskill your workforce and drive innovation.

The post Get AI ready: Inside the Copilot Learning Hub appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

At the same time, organizations are confronting a skills gap. In fact, according to the 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report from Microsoft and LinkedIn, 55% of leaders report that they’re concerned about having enough talent to fill roles in the year ahead and 76% of professionals say that they need AI skills to remain competitive. The good news is that Microsoft Learn offers skill-building resources, opportunities, and solutions to meet these critical needs.  

Business leaders and professionals care about AI skills.

To accelerate AI transformation, we recommend a skills-first approach—emphasizing skills and competencies, in addition to degrees and job histories. We suggest focusing on skill building for your whole organization:  

• Take a structured approach. Begin with basic AI concepts as technical teams build the skills to onboard Microsoft Copilot experiences and create AI apps. Help business users understand how to use AI in their work, and help ensure that those in technical roles have the skills to design, build, and deploy solutions to address your organization’s unique business scenarios.  
• Upskill across every role. Beyond IT, everyone in your organization plays a key role in company-wide AI adoption. To help develop, deploy, and make the best use of new AI solutions, upskill your entire workforce. 
• Work with a trusted partner. Start with the AI learning hub on Microsoft Learn, which offers training to accelerate your AI transformation. With Microsoft Learn, business leaders can get the skills to craft strategic AI plans, technical teams can learn to create and implement AI applications with Microsoft AI solutions, and business users can make the most of new AI skills to supercharge their productivity.  

A skills-first approach to AI leads to skill building for every role, with Microsoft Learn as a trusted partner.

Discover the latest industry insights around AI skills in our recently published position paper Accelerate AI transformation with skill building, which highlights the experiences of customers and partners who are running AI skill-building initiatives. Offering practical guidance, it expands on key ways that you can drive successful AI transformation in your organization.  

Learn Microsoft AI with our new blog series 

Today, we’re launching “Get AI ready,” our new AI-focused series of blog posts exploring perspectives and opportunities to acquire critical AI skills. In this series, we share insights, learning experiences, resources, and ideas for individuals and organizations as we all navigate the world of AI skill building.  

Plus, we share how we’re refreshing our training offerings—and how we’re using AI to improve them—so you know that you can learn the latest skills in the most productive way. We understand the challenges, uncertainties, and benefits that come with AI, and we’re creating this series to help you find what you need to skill up for success. 

Wondering what to expect? Here’s a sneak peek into future posts:  

• Deep dives into AI learning journey resources from Microsoft Learn 
• Real-world AI skill-building success stories and best practices from individuals and organizations 
• Microsoft as customer zero for AI adoption and what we’ve learned about skilling up our own employees 
• How to foster a culture of AI learning and innovation 
• How to prove your AI skills with Microsoft Credentials 

No matter where you are on your AI learning journey, Microsoft Learn meets you there with the resources you need to build and validate your skills—and we’re there for individuals, teams, and organizations alike. 

Coming next: Get AI ready: Build technical skills with the Copilot learning hub 

Stay tuned for our next post! We’ll explore the new Copilot learning hub on Microsoft Learn, created for technology professionals and filled with helpful resources tailored to specific job roles and career goals. It’s where you can find what you need to develop the technical skills to put Microsoft Copilot to work for you. In the post, we’ll include insider information from the team that creates these resources. Spoiler alert: Expect tips and tricks on how to choose your perfect Copilot experience and make the most of it to help boost your efficiency and productivity.  

Stay tuned for our next post in the blog series: Build technical skills with the Copilot learning hub.

From initial AI skill building across every role, to making the most of Copilot at your desk each day—and beyond—we look forward to sharing this AI learning journey with you as we help close the skills gap together. 

Follow us on X and LinkedIn, and make sure you’re subscribed to The Spark, our LinkedIn newsletter. 

The post Get AI ready: Build skills with Microsoft Learn appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

Advances in AI, cloud, and other emerging technologies are empowering organizations to pursue new opportunities for growth and innovation. Read on to learn how skill building with Microsoft Learn is a critical element of your AI transformation strategy.

AI’s ubiquity across organizations means that business and technology leaders like you need to approach AI skill building in a different way. We know that you’re not only facing the challenge of keeping up with the rapid pace of technology, but you’re also grappling with a shortage of skilled workers.

It’s clear there is a pressing need for AI skilling. To help address the skills gap, this past year, Microsoft engaged more than 6 million people globally in learning activities with ambitions to skill everyone to use our AI technology.

It’s your AI learning journey

Today, it’s more important than ever to have the right skills so you can accelerate AI implementation at scale. While Microsoft’s AI apps and services empower you to innovate and accomplish more than you thought possible, we recognize it can be challenging to know where to begin.

We’re on this journey at Microsoft as well. We’re customer zero of our own products, exploring how to use AI to drive growth, unlock efficiency, and reduce operating costs. As we upskill ourselves in AI and understand how we can best use it in our day-to-day, we’re also exploring how to leverage AI to improve the learning experiences we offer.

Together with our customers and partners developing new AI skills, we’ve gathered key insights about what is necessary to nurture AI competency. We’ve designed a simple framework to help our customers chart their own course for building the necessary AI skills to realize the value of the Microsoft platform. Learn more with the Accelerate AI transformation with skill building position paper.

Accelerate AI transformation with skill building

Read the position paper

Each organization has its own unique AI learning journey. Your goals and needs, and those of your team members, may vary depending on how much you know about AI and how you want to use it. It’s your AI learning journey.

• Understanding AI means getting to know the basics of AI, such as definitions and key terms, responsible AI, and how it benefits individuals and organizations.
• Preparing for AI is about acquiring the skills to successfully get your organization ready to later use Microsoft Copilot and build AI-powered apps.
• Using AI means understanding Copilot and getting the skills to write effective prompts and get the best out of generative AI, so you can use Copilot successfully.
• Building AI solutions is about learning skills to embed Al in apps using Microsoft Azure Al Services and skills to build your own copilots experiences with Microsoft Copilot Studio.

Microsoft Learn is your AI skill-building partner

No matter where you are on your AI learning journey, Microsoft Learn meets you there. Whether you’re just beginning to understand what AI is and how it might be beneficial to your organization, or you’re ready to use Copilot and productivity-enhancing AI, or you’re looking to build bespoke AI-powered solutions, we can help you reach your goals.

By offering comprehensive curated resources, tools, and guidance, Microsoft Learn supports you and your team as you build the skills necessary to execute new AI innovation projects and achieve your business objectives.

Here are some learning tools and resources to explore.

The AI learning hub

Begin with the AI learning hub, the go-to resource. In this hub, business leaders, business users, and technology professionals can find everything they need to gain AI skills, in a single place. They can explore training by role or by technology, options to learn with the support of the community or Microsoft Training Services Partners, and recommendations from our team on new topics to deep dive into.

AI learning hub

Get skilled up and ready to power AI transformation

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Verifiable AI skills, with Microsoft Credentials

Take your team’s AI skills to the next level with Microsoft Credentials, which include Microsoft Certifications and Microsoft Applied Skills. Certifications offer the flexibility to grow the skills needed for critical roles, and Applied Skills offer the agility to expand the skills needed for key business scenarios. Together they bring verifiable skillsets aligned to AI job roles and AI projects, ensuring you’re building resilient and adaptable teams ready to take on new opportunities.

Explore Microsoft Credentials for AI and find role-based certifications like Azure AI Engineer or Azure Data Scientist, or scenario-based Applied Skills including developing generative AI solutions, training and deploying machine learning models, or creating analytics solutions with Microsoft Fabric.

Start your AI learning journey now

However you’re looking to advance your organization, Microsoft Learn is the trusted source to help you get skilled up and ready to power AI transformation with the Microsoft Cloud.

Explore our Microsoft Learn Blog, follow us on X and LinkedIn, and get subscribed to “The Spark,” our Microsoft Learn LinkedIn newsletter, to stay updated on what’s new in AI and cloud skills.

The post Transform your business with AI skill building on Microsoft Learn appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.