While adoption of AI technology is now widespread, impact is not. Many organizations are experimenting and running pilot programs, but far fewer have the operating discipline to become what we call Frontier Firms—companies that scale AI in ways that meaningfully reshape work, decisions, and value creation. According to IDC’s Business Opportunity of AI Survey (August 2025), 68% of all respondents use GenAI and only 22% of organizations worldwide are Frontier Firms.¹ These companies are seeing a return on investment in the technology that is several times greater than companies that are slow to adopt.

This gap is why Microsoft developed a newly revised 2026 edition of the AI Decision Brief, a handbook designed to help leaders and business decision-makers embrace the opportunities of Frontier Transformation. It addresses how AI can become a durable source of advantage: where to focus, how to measure value, how agents change workflows, and how trust, governance, and responsibility enable scale. “This is not simply the next stage of technology adoption,” writes Brad Smith, Microsoft Vice Chair and President. “Frontier Transformation is a leadership moment that asks organizations to fundamentally rethink how people, processes, and decisions work together.

We believe that this brief answers the questions many executives are asking about how to stay ahead of the curve. The questions below surface what we’re hearing from business leaders across industries as they plan investments, assess readiness, and look ahead. Each reflects a theme explored in depth in the AI Decision Brief and points to how organizations can begin turning AI execution into lasting impact. 

1. How can my company get the biggest impact from AI? 

The biggest impact comes when AI changes how the business operates—not just how fast someone answers an email. “Frontier Transformation is a holistic reimagining of business, aligning AI with human ambition to achieve an organization’s highest aspirations and growth potential,” writes Judson Althoff, CEO of Microsoft commercial business.

What does this mean in practice? Frontier Firms are leveraging AI to transform customer engagement, core processes, decision-making, and innovation. For them, AI isn’t confined to one team or one tool. Instead, it’s embedded across the enterprise in an average of seven business functions. That’s when the outcomes compound. These organizations are monetizing AI and outperforming slow adopters with roughly 3x higher returns.¹ Agents are accelerating that shift because they don’t just make recommendations; they can take action and complete tasks.

2. How do you graduate beyond early wins with AI adoption?

While AI can boost individual productivity—drafting documents, summarizing meetings, and automating the more tedious aspects of jobs—it can do so much more, according to Jaime Teevan, Chief Scientist and Technical Fellow at Microsoft. “The real opportunity is bigger: not just helping individuals work faster, but enabling teams and organizations to work better, together,” she writes. 

Most AI initiatives stall for the same reason most transformations stall: teams prove their value in specific use cases, but leaders don’t change the system around them. The model isn’t the bottleneck—processes, decision rights, and trust are. Frontier leaders, on the other hand, pick a small number of priority workflows and redesign them end to end. That’s how you move from “we got a nice pilot result” to “AI is embedded in how we run the business.”

3. How do I identify the priority workflows where AI can meaningfully change outcomes? 

“AI integration is often framed as a technical problem: which models to use, how to connect systems, how to mitigate risk,” writes Jared Spataro, Microsoft CMO of AI at Work. “But for most organizations, the real constraint on value is not technology, it’s how work is organized and governed. The bigger challenge is centered on management.”

Frontier organizations don’t ask, “Where can we plug in AI to automate a task?” They ask, “Which workflows most directly affect revenue, cost, risk, customer experience, or speed of decision-making?” Frontier leaders focus on embedding AI, agents, and data directly into those areas of high impact. 

4. As AI agents take more action on behalf of employees and teams, how does my role as a leader need to change?

Leadership has become even more important in the agentic era. “When AI systems can plan and execute over many steps, leadership and engineering rigor become the real bottlenecks,” writes Kevin Scott, CTO of Microsoft. “You need teams that are explicit about goals, careful about feedback and evaluation, and thoughtful about where autonomy is earned versus constrained.” 

The greatest risks are unclear intent, ownership, and accountability. Frontier leaders get ahead of this by redefining roles and decision rights early. Humans set outcomes, constraints, and success measures, while agents operate within clearly governed boundaries. That means treating agents like new employees or privileged service accounts—with named owners, least-privilege access, continuous monitoring, and regular review. 

5. How do you measure the success of AI when it’s embedded across workflows, decisions, and teams—not just individual tasks?

“Early productivity gains from AI are now expected,” writes Alysa Taylor, Microsoft CMO of Commercial Cloud and AI. “But Frontier leaders see beyond those short-term efficiency wins. They understand how AI can also help grow revenue, increase customer acquisitions, reshape processes, and improve operational efficiency.” 

Frontier leaders measure ROI the way they run the business: at the workflow and outcome level, not by counting isolated tasks. Yes, they track early productivity signals, but they don’t stop there—they tie AI to business metrics like faster cycle times, higher quality and consistency, better customer experience, lower risk, and faster decision-making.  

6. We’re under pressure to move fast with AI. Can we tackle security later on?

Great question! The answer is simple: absolutely not. “The AI opportunity is incredible, but speed without security, observability and governance opens the door to significant risk. By embedding these elements from the start, organizations can innovate rapidly while building and fostering trust,” writes Vasu Jakkal, CVP of Microsoft Security Business. 

The moment AI moves beyond pilots and starts touching real data, customers, and decisions, issues with security and accountability can offset gains in efficiency. According to Microsoft’s 2026 Data Security Index, less than half (47%) of companies have fully implemented data security controls for AI. Frontier leaders build observability, Zero Trust security, and clear ownership from day one, so teams can move faster with confidence instead of stopping to clean things up later.  

7. How do you scale AI across an organization without losing control or trust?

“Scaling AI is less about deploying tools and more about preparing people,” writes Nathalie D’Hers, Microsoft CVP of Employee Experience. “A workplace culture grounded in a growth mindset is more important than ever.” Frontier Firms embrace continuous learning and agility. This helps teams fundamentally reimagine processes and think bigger.  

Crucially, Frontier organizations also pair empowerment with guardrails. They give employees access to AI where work actually happens—through copilots, low-code tools, and approved platforms—so innovation isn’t bottlenecked by a small group of specialists. At the same time, they’re very clear about boundaries. That includes shared governance frameworks, approved data sources, identity and access controls, and observability at every layer. That’s what allows creation to scale safely.  

8. How do I balance Frontier Transformation with sustainability? 

“AI and sustainability are often treated as separate agenda items, but they are fundamentally connected,” writes Melanie Nakagawa, Chief Sustainability Officer at Microsoft. “Leaders should understand both sides of that equation: the resource footprint of AI as well as the opportunity it brings to help them operate more efficiently, build smarter, more resilient systems, and lower carbon emissions.”  

As AI grows, it brings real resource and trust questions about environmental impact, supply chains, community impact, and whether the benefits of AI are broadly shared. The Frontier view is that designing for efficiency, responsibility, and equitable diffusion isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s how you unlock durable growth while avoiding backlash, constraints, and extra work later.

At Microsoft, we’re building out AI infrastructure with sustainability in mind while also using AI as a force multiplier for climate progress by optimizing systems, accelerating materials discovery, and improving resource efficiency.     

Next steps to lead in the era of Frontier Transformation

Read the full AI Decision Brief to understand what it takes to lead in the era of Frontier Transformation. The insights, leadership advice, and practical tips found within our brief will help prepare your company to properly utilize and scale a powerful AI strategy. Once you have that knowledge base, you’ll need a trusted, reliable set of AI tools to execute that strategy. 

Explore Microsoft AI tools and solutions for your Frontier Transformation. 

¹ IDC InfoBrief: sponsored by Microsoft, What Every Company Can Learn From Frontier Firms Leading the AI Revolution, IDC # US53838325, November 2025 

The post AI Decision Brief: How leaders can drive Frontier Transformation appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

Frontier leaders aren’t simply bolting new technology onto their existing operations. As Microsoft Chief Executive Officer of Commercial Business Judson Althoff has shared in recent articles and keynotes, these leaders are taking a human-centered approach to AI transformation. The people closest to the work understand the real bottlenecks and opportunities. By equipping them with AI, leaders unlock practical solutions that drive measurable performance gains.

3 essentials for building a Frontier organization

Here’s Althoff’s outline for a Frontier approach to using AI and agents that puts capability directly into each employee’s hands.

1. Start with your employees to amplify ambition

At the heart of every Frontier business flow is the notion of democratizing intelligence. Human ambition is at the core, coupled with your AI assistants and agents to get real work done.

—Judson Althoff, Chief Executive Officer of Commercial Business, Microsoft

The idea: The point isn’t to simply deploy more technology, but to deploy it in ways that unlock more potential in people to solve their hardest problems and create more business impact. 

Why it matters: According to IDC,¹ AI adoption is accelerating past the initial experimentation phase, with 68% of companies using AI and 37% using agents. However, providing access to the technology is not the same as providing the guidance and skilling needed to unlock its potential. 

The shift: Frontier leaders focus on applying agents where they matter most—the priority workflows that define performance and growth. AI is at its most powerful when employees have the space and the guidance they need to imagine, experiment, and pursue bolder ideas. 

The big picture: Frontier leaders don’t start with AI capabilities. They start with human ambition, then design the systems, workflows, and guardrails that allow that ambition to scale responsibly. This requires treating AI adoption as a management system—not an IT rollout—with executives and business decision-makers actively redesigning workflows end-to-end.

2. Expand across every business function

There’s a maker in every one of us, and the Frontier Firm has a maker in every room of the house.

—Judson Althoff, Chief Executive Officer of Commercial Business, Microsoft

The idea: The people closest to the challenge are often closest to the opportunity. As AI becomes more accessible, creativity moves from the edges of the organization to the center so that everyone is empowered to innovate.

A striking data point: Frontier Firms aren’t leaving AI adoption to the IT department—they are making it a company-wide leadership priority. According to IDC research, Frontier Firms are using the technology across seven business functions on average.

Real-world innovations: Mercedes-Benz scaled AI innovation across its global production network, diagnosing efficiency declines and reducing energy consumption of buildings and machines—including 20% energy savings in one paint shop. And Althoff highlights how Toyota is pioneering AI intelligence in manufacturing with the O-beya system, a multi-agent AI system that simulates expert discussions virtually. O-beya can auto-select AI agents in fields like fuel efficiency, along with drivability, noise and vibration, energy management, and power management to pinpoint causes and suggest solutions. 

The takeaway: Broadening access to agents can unleash innovation. Frontier leaders don’t need to script how employees should use the technology—they just need to ensure that there are proper guardrails around a wide space for experimentation.

3. Trust, governance, and integration determine ROI

The idea: AI can create more value when people trust it enough to use it. Trust is what allows AI-powered innovation to scale beyond isolated pilots. And that requires human oversight with “observability at every layer of the stack,” according to Althoff. 

The challenge: Not every organization has put the right safeguards in place yet. Microsoft’s 2026 Data Security Index reports that only 47% of companies have fully implemented data security controls for AI.   

The solution: Frontier leaders must ensure security and be explicit about human-in-the-loop observability as a cornerstone of transformation. People adopt AI confidently when they understand how decisions are made, how data flows, and how systems behave—and when to intervene as needed. Finally, Frontier organizations don’t implement new technology and then slow down—or backtrack—to implement responsible practices. They design for trust from the start so they can keep moving quickly. 

Actions you can take to drive measurable impact

The idea: The organizations that will win in the Frontier era are those that view AI not as a one-off tool rollout but as a leadership discipline. They start by clarifying ambition, giving people the space and agency to act, and building trust early so transformation can scale across the business. Importantly, they use AI themselves to guide decisions, surface insights, and stress test ideas about keeping humans at the center of their business transformation. 

Where to start: Microsoft’s new Prompt Guide for Business Leaders was designed to help leaders get a handle on the changing AI landscape and use the technology itself to stress test their ideas and strategies in response to it. The guide offers guidance on how to:  

1. Assess readiness
2. Identify value 
3. Map workflows 
4. Build roadmap 
5. Plan for risk 
6. Define actionable next steps

Example prompt: “Show me the top three workflows where agents could reduce cycle time by at least 20% based on our current operations.”

From vision to value in the Frontier era

The guide demonstrates how AI can be a thinking partner, and helps leaders develop a strategy to help their people harness the technology to achieve goals, innovate, and unlock more value.

Innovation with AI

What every company can learn from Frontier Firms leading the AI revolution

Read the report

¹ IDC InfoBrief: sponsored by Microsoft, What Every Company Can Learn From Frontier Firms Leading the AI Revolution, IDC # US53838325, November 2025.

The post How to start your Frontier Transformation: 3 strategies to start with people appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

Today’s business environment demands more with less. Organizations must deliver better personalization, higher volume, and increasingly complex insights while operating with greater efficiency. The gap between stakeholder expectations and what teams can realistically deliver continues to widen. 

Microsoft’s recent insights on Frontier Transformation address these challenges by embedding AI into the core of operations. Frontier Firms are organizations that treat AI as a foundational capability and are already transforming how they work. 

Frontier Firms don’t simply automate; they adapt. By adding adaptive intelligence to existing systems, they unlock three advantages: 

• Awareness: Systems perceive conditions in real time. 
• Reasoning: They prioritize tasks based on business needs. 
• Interaction: They communicate in natural, intuitive ways. 

Early adopters see small improvements compound quickly. These include faster service, more accurate recommendations, fewer equipment surprises, and clearer insights into peak times and bottlenecks. As agentic AI matures, companies can offer guidance and assistance that feels intuitive. Employees gain more time for high-value work, and leaders gain deeper visibility into operations. 

Frontier Transformation is more than a technology upgrade. It represents a shift in operating model. Organizations that treat AI as a foundation will lead the next wave of business innovation. 

Agentic AI is reshaping customer experience 

This shift is already visible in retail, where agentic robots are transforming customer experience and improving operational performance. Customers expect fast, personalized service, yet retailers often face staffing constraints, training gaps, and unpredictable demand. 

Industry studies show: 

• 75% of consumers are more likely to purchase when recommendations feel relevant. 
• Nearly 40% of in-store complaints relate to wait times. 
• Inventory inaccuracies account for 4–8% of lost sales. 

These challenges reflect a broader pattern across frontline-heavy industries. Customer expectations continue to rise, and employee workloads grow more complex. 

Microsoft’s Work Trend Index reinforces this dynamic. Frontline employees say AI tools that reduce repetitive tasks, surface real-time information, and streamline customer interactions have the biggest impact on satisfaction and performance. As organizations integrate adaptive intelligence into daily workflows, these benefits build on each other and help accelerate Frontier Transformation. 

Recent industry research shows that retail and consumer packaged goods organizations are generating significant business value from generative and agentic AI, with early deployments consistently delivering multi-times ROI and accelerating impact across frontline operations.

Agentic AI creates new possibilities for stores. Instead of relying on rigid automation, it blends environmental awareness, adaptive reasoning, and conversational interaction to help teams respond in real time. 

ADAM: From beverage service to customer care 

Richtech Robotics’ ADAM beverage robot illustrates how quickly agentic systems can enhance the customer experience. Richtech, based in Las Vegas, designs and commercializes autonomous robotic solutions for hospitality, retail, logistics, and manufacturing. Through a close, hands-on collaboration between Richtech’s engineering team and the Microsoft AI Co-Innovation Labs, the two companies jointly developed new adaptive intelligence for ADAM—transforming it into a conversational, context-aware assistant powered by Microsoft Azure AI. These enhancements enabled ADAM to move beyond routine beverage preparation and support richer customer interactions.

Today, ADAM: 

• Adjusts recommendations based on weather, time of day, and promotions. 
• Responds naturally to customer requests like “less sweet,” “extra ice,” or “what’s seasonal?” 
• Notifies staff about ingredient or equipment issues before problems occur. 
• Uses vision models to maintain speed and quality during busy periods. 

Retailers report smoother operations and better customer feedback. ADAM is context aware, conversational, and reliable—qualities customers consistently reward and areas where AI has historically struggled. 

While ADAM is a retail example, the pattern extends far beyond beverage automation. Across logistics, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing, Frontier Firms are adding ambient intelligence and agentic workflows to physical operations and seeing meaningful gains as a result. 

Unlocking retail transformation at scale 

Once retailers see how intelligence enhances a single customer interaction, the next question naturally follows: where else can this help? Building on the advancements made with ADAM, Richtech Robotics is extending these capabilities through its Agentic Store initiative. By applying vision, voice, and agentic reasoning to common in-store tasks, the initiative helps retailers address friction points that slow down the shopping experience. 

Examples under development include: 

• Robots that guide customers to products.
• Systems that detect empty shelves or misplaced items.
• Voice-enabled, in-aisle assistance.
• Real-time adjustments based on foot traffic or local events.

This approach does not require heavy hardware investments. These workflows are software-driven and build on existing store infrastructure. It reflects how Frontier Firms drive transformation by spreading intelligence across the ecosystem rather than upgrading a single process at a time. 

Retailers gain clearer visibility into peak demand, customer behavior, product movement, and service quality without increasing manual tracking. As one store manager described it, “it feels like having a second set of eyes that never gets tired.” 

Convenient, high-quality service becomes a blueprint for store-wide intelligence. In the coming years, a clear difference will emerge between retailers that treat AI as a tool and those that treat it as a foundation. The latter will set the pace for the industry. 

Steps toward Frontier Transformation 

Agentic AI gives retailers a practical and achievable path forward. It elevates customer experience, reduces operational strain, and creates the foundation for smarter and more adaptive stores. Organizations that embrace Frontier Transformation position themselves as Frontier Firms, ready to scale faster, work more intelligently, and unlock new value through the combination of human judgment and AI-driven insight. 

The journey begins with small, strategic steps and a bold vision for what is possible. To explore the broader business impact of AI across frontline and customer-facing roles, review Microsoft’s Work Trend Index: The year the Frontier Firm is born.

Explore how organizations are transforming with AI, and learn how you can build your own generative AI proof of concept with the Microsoft AI Co-Innovation Labs.

The post Frontier Transformation in retail: How agentic AI robots are redefining store experiences appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

The question today isn’t whether AI can deliver value, but how quickly organizations can scale it across their business. Challenges such as aligning business and IT, ensuring data quality, navigating governance and regulatory considerations, and avoiding an overemphasis on experimentation can slow progress and widen the gap between leaders and slow adopters.

At Microsoft Ignite, the core message was clear: AI in the flow of work can unlock human ambition, and scaling with trust and observability is essential. Organizations that embed AI into everyday workflows empower people to achieve more, while trust and observability ensure innovation happens responsibly and at scale.

What sets a Frontier Firm apart

According to a recent study from IDC, 68% of organizations are using AI today, but the real difference lies in how they’re using it. Frontier Firms are realizing returns that are three times higher than slow adopters. What sets these leaders apart is the breadth and depth of their AI adoption. On average, Frontier Firms are using AI across seven business functions, with over 70% deploying AI in customer service, marketing, IT, product development, and cybersecurity.

A Frontier Firm is defined not by its size or industry, but by its mindset and execution. These organizations lead with AI-first differentiation, embedding intelligence across every layer of the business—from employee experiences to customer engagements to core processes. “Becoming Frontier” means moving beyond experimentation to enterprise-scale transformation, unlocking creativity, obsolescing the mundane, and driving competitive advantage in the agentic era. Leaders invest in upskilling, culture, and strong foundations—strategy, data, security, and compliance—to align technology with ambitious goals.

Successful Frontier Firms, as highlighted at Microsoft Ignite, share three common traits in their approach to AI. First, they integrate AI seamlessly into the flow of human ambition, amplifying creativity and accelerating decision-making through everyday workflows. Second, they foster ubiquitous innovation by democratizing AI creation—empowering everyone, from frontline employees to executives, to build agents and solutions that address real business challenges. Third, they prioritize observability at every layer, embedding governance, security, and compliance into all AI systems to ensure visibility, control, and trust as they scale. These traits collectively allow Frontier Firms to lead with agility, resilience, and measurable business impact.

Where AI is delivering business value today

The impact of AI is accelerating across industries. For example, Levi Strauss & Co. reduced project timelines from a year to a day with Microsoft Copilot and Copilot+ PCs. ABB is transforming industrial operations with Microsoft Azure and AI-powered insights, and Land O’Lakes is embedding AI into agricultural workflows to optimize supply chains and accelerate decision-making. These stories demonstrate how AI is driving measurable outcomes at scale.

This broad adoption is translating into measurable business impact. Compared to slow adopters, Frontier Firms report better outcomes at a rate that is four times higher across brand differentiation (87%), cost efficiency (86%), top-line growth (88%), and customer experience (85%). They’re not just automating tasks—they’re unlocking industry-specific value, with 67% monetizing AI use cases tailored to their sector and 58% already using custom AI solutions.¹

Partnering for Frontier transformation

As we’ve already alluded to, becoming a Frontier Firm isn’t just about technology—it’s about strategy, culture, and execution. Microsoft partners with organizations to accelerate transformation and measurable impact, combining deep expertise, integrated intelligence, and a global ecosystem. Trust is at the core of every AI experience, with enterprise-grade security, real-time observability, and automated governance built in.

Leading organizations are already putting these principles into practice—accelerating innovation, transforming customer experiences, and creating new sources of growth. These examples prove that becoming a Frontier Firm isn’t theoretical; it’s happening now.

The future of AI-powered business

The divide between AI leaders and others is growing, reshaping the competitive landscape. Frontier Firms are moving rapidly from pilots to widespread AI adoption, raising the bar for business impact. Microsoft Ignite underscored that the future belongs to organizations that embed AI at every level, empower their people, and lead with trust.

Becoming an AI-First Frontier Firm

Learn how bold organizations across industries are combining human expertise with AI agents to achieve faster growth, greater efficiency, and sustained innovation.

Get the e-book

For organizations ready to take the next step, the Becoming an AI-First Frontier Firm e-book offers practical insights and a roadmap for transformation.

¹ IDC InfoBrief: sponsored by Microsoft, What Every Company Can Learn From Frontier Firms Leading the AI Revolution, IDC # US53838325, November 2025

The post Becoming a Frontier Firm: Unlocking the business value of AI  appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

1. Preparing for the integration of AI and agents.
2. Strengthening training so that everyone has the necessary skills. 
3. Fostering a culture that prioritizes cybersecurity. 

Preparing for the integration of AI and intelligent agents

Preparing for AI and agent integration calls for careful strategy, thoughtful business planning, and organization-wide adoption under solid governance, security, and management. Microsoft’s AI adoption model offers a step-by-step guide for businesses embarking on this journey and the guide offers actionable insights and solutions to manage AI risks.

Strengthening training so that everyone has the necessary skills

Technology alone isn’t enough. People are your strongest defense—and the foundation of trust. That’s why skilling emerged as a central theme throughout these past months and will continue beyond. Frontier Firms—those structured around on-demand intelligence and powered by “hybrid” teams of humans plus agents—lead by fostering a culture of continuous learning. Our blog “Building human-centric security skills for AI” offers insights and guidance you can apply in your organization.  

• Lean into your unique human strengths: Your team’s judgment, creativity, and experience are irreplaceable. Take time to invest in upskilling and reskilling them, so they can confidently guide and manage AI tools responsibly and securely. Explore Microsoft Learn for Organizations for resources to support your learning journey.
• Stay curious and agile through continuous learning: Building security resilience is an ongoing process. Regularly refresh your AI and security training, offer time and resources for employees to explore new skills, and create a supportive, engaging environment that motivates continuous growth. Find in AI Skills Navigator, our agentic learning space, AI and security training tailored to different roles.  

Investing in skilling doesn’t just reduce risk—it accelerates innovation by giving teams the confidence to explore new AI capabilities securely. 

Skilling is an ongoing practice that needs to constantly evolve alongside the business and technology landscape. Staying ahead requires an enterprise-wide strategy that aligns ever-changing business priorities with always-on skill-building. 

—Jeana Jorgensen, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Learning

Fostering a culture that prioritizes security

As AI impacts everyone’s role, make security awareness and responsible AI practices shared priorities. Encourage your team to weave security thinking into their daily routines—creating a safer environment for all. As Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Security highlighted in her blog “Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Security starts with you,” it is critical that security become part of your organization’s culture and norms. 

Check out our new e-book, Skilling for Secure AI: How Frontier Firms Lead the Way for practical steps for leaders to upskill their workforce in identity management, data governance, and responsible AI practices.

From awareness to action

In the agentic AI era, people continue to be our most valuable resource. It’s essential to empower them with AI and equip them with the skills they need to use AI responsibly and securely. Cybersecurity awareness should go beyond designated months or campaigns; true awareness means taking meaningful action.   

Here are three actions you can take today to maximize your AI investments: 

1. Share the Be Cybersmart Kit with your employees. It includes tips for protecting yourself from fraud and deepfakes, guidance on safe AI usage, and key security best practices.
2. Invest in people: Focus on upskilling initiatives that support your AI transformation, cloud modernization, and security-first strategies.
3. Champion a security-first culture: Ensure cybersecurity is integral to every business discussion and woven into your overall strategy. 

Microsoft guide for securing the AI-powered enterprise

Download the guide

The post From awareness to action: Building a security-first culture for the agentic AI era appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Influencing the future with the wisdom of the past

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prioritizing data in decision-making at scale

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weaving innovation and intuition into all operations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Modernizing a trusted resource to elevate human expertise

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bringing AI into the next Frontier

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

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

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

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

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

Becoming Frontier is the strategic shift to transform your business into a secure, AI-first organization, seamlessly integrating AI throughout your business to drive innovation, empower people, and optimize processes. Organizations who put AI into the center of their operations, we call Frontier Firms.​ Built around on-demand intelligence and powered by human–AI collaboration, they can scale faster, operate with greater agility, and unlock real business value at unprecedented speed. 

We’ll explore how leading companies—Adecco, ABB, Loft Orbital, Air India, and HEINEKEN—are embracing the Frontier Firm mindset and some of them are already experiencing between a 30% to 63% increase in productivity alone. 

We’ll explore how leading companies—Adecco, ABB, Loft Orbital, Air India, and HEINEKEN—are embracing the Frontier Firm mindset. Each is reimagining their industry by putting AI at the core of their strategy, culture, and operations, and their perspectives offer a blueprint and lessons for what’s possible when organizations truly become frontier.  

Let’s look at how some of the world’s most innovative organizations are putting these principles into practice. 

ABB—Uses AI to unlock the future of industry  

ABB is committed to using responsible and sustainable AI innovation that is yielding measurable business impact. By integrating the Azure OpenAI, Genix Copilot unlocks the power of generative and agentic AI to industrial operations—helping customers achieve a 35% cost savings in operations and maintenance, and boost production efficiency by 30%. According to Rajesh Ramachandran, Global Chief Digital Officer, Process Automation, “ABB Genix Copilot transforms the way real-time data insights are delivered to field engineers, functional analysts and industry executives enabling smarter decisions. We are helping our customers outperform by becoming leaner and cleaner—achieving the combined goals of efficiency, reliability, and sustainability.”

Adecco—Revolutionizing recruitment using an AI-powered approach 

Adecco is using the real power of AI and its ability to unlock human potential. Their lesson is clear: upskilling, inclusion, and human-centric innovation are essential. By integrating AI (such as Microsoft 365 Copilot) into their “Recruiter GenAI Suite, we have seen up to 63% of productivity, which is really amazing. And this enables our recruiters to spend more time having valuable conversations with the candidates, and workforce development,” states Carolyn Basyn, Chief Digital and Information Officer at Adecco. Adecco shows that technology can create more meaningful experiences for clients, candidates, and colleagues—ensuring no one is left behind. 

Air India—Powering Air India’s digital transformation with data and AI 

Air India is a testament to the power of democratizing AI. By making AI accessible across their organization, they’re closing skill gaps and empowering teams to make data-driven decisions—whether it’s optimizing flight schedules or enhancing customer service. In fact, AI.g, an AI-powered virtual agent handles an average of 30,000 customer queries daily with 97% of them fully automated. “This means just 3% of the queries get escalated to human agents. That saves us several million dollars a year” explains Dr. Satya Ramaswami, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Air India. Their journey shows that AI enhances job satisfaction—driving agility and excellence while supporting their on-time performance goals. 

Loft Orbital—Building smarter satellites with AI  

Loft Orbital (Loft) is developing AI-powered satellites to simplify access to space. Their satellites process data with edge computing to more efficiently deliver on-demand intelligence. Loft relies on GitHub Copilot to support their development teams, helping them write code faster, with more accuracy, and now apply it to quality assessment, information management, and even onboard systems. “Our approach highlights the importance of trusted partnerships and secure, scalable infrastructure in scaling AI innovation. Our satellites are autonomously coordinated to help us respond faster to emerging events, reduce reliance on ground operations, and deliver actionable insights right when they’re needed,” states Lucas Bremond, Chief Software Architect at Loft. 

HEINEKEN—Tapping AI to become the best-connected brewer 

Even a 160-year old company like HEINEKEN stands out for their disciplined experimentation with AI and commitment to responsible innovation. By piloting high-impact use cases, rigorously measuring results, and scaling what works, HEINEKEN demonstrates that weaving AI into every part of the business—from brewing and marketing to supply chain and sales—leads to tangible gains and a culture ready for the future. “AI needs to help to grow the business. So it’s around consumer insights, it’s around brand building, it’s around revenue management, it’s around sales execution,” shares Ronald den Elzen, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at HEINEKEN. HEINEKEN’s journey highlights how a culture of experimentation and responsible innovation can prepare a company for whatever the future holds.  

Solving industry specific challenges with AI 

Each organization demonstrates how AI can be harnessed to solve industry-specific challenges: from revolutionizing recruitment and upskilling talent, to optimizing industrial operations, transforming airline performance, enabling smarter satellites, and connecting global supply chains. 

What stands out most is that every Frontier Firm’s journey is unique, but the lessons are universal: put people first, innovate responsibly, experiment boldly, and measure what matters. These companies aren’t just adapting to change—they’re leading it, showing us that when we embrace AI with purpose and vision, we unlock new opportunities for growth, creativity, and impact. 

As you consider your own organization’s AI journey, let these stories serve as inspiration and guidance. The future belongs to those who experiment boldly, measure what matters, and put people at the heart of transformation.  

Are you ready to become a Frontier Firm? 

Explore how Microsoft’s AI solutions can transform your organization.   

Leverage our available resources to innovate with AI and start your journey to becoming a Frontier firm. 

• Advance your AI transformation: AI business resources.
• Explore Microsoft’s AI solutions and get the guide.
• Discover: real-world AI use cases to help you accelerate your business goals.

¹ HAI Stanford University, The 2025 AI Index Report.

The post Frontier Firms in action: Lessons from the AI adoption surge appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Creating an AI learning culture

Read the paper

2. Tailored learning builds confidence and drives adoption

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Dan Jermyn, Chief Decision Scientist, CommBank

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bringing it all together to build an AI-ready workforce 

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

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

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

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