When a client requests an urgent fund transfer, financial advisors need instant access to account details and approvals, as delays can affect revenue and client trust. The same urgency applies to farmers, who must decide the optimal time to harvest to maximise yields, and to warehouse operators, who rely on real-time insights to manage stock and keep supply chains flowing. In every sector, speed, accuracy and actionable data – and the intelligence to interpret it – are more than just operational concerns, they are key to organisations achieving a competitive edge in fast-moving markets.
“Across every industry, generative and agentic AI are deriving insights from data and redefining how organisations operate, compete and grow,” says Alysa Taylor, chief marketing officer for commercial cloud and AI at Microsoft.
In finance, investment banking firm UBS is innovating with AI through its Smart Technologies and Advanced Analytics Team (STAAT), which combines advanced data analytics with machine learning to power intelligent insights. Built on Microsoft Azure, STAAT Assist automatically extracts key client information and populates transfer requests, enabling advisors to review and approve them with a single click, surfacing opportunities and speeding up the client experience. In agriculture, Land O’Lakes, a farmer-owned cooperative, built its Oz assistant on models within Azure AI Foundry to provide fast, accurate, mobile-friendly responses to agricultural questions. Meanwhile, American clothing firm Levi Strauss & Co. is using an Azure-native orchestrator agent embedded in Microsoft Teams to coordinate multiple subagents, enabling employees across corporate, retail and warehouse environments to access fast, accurate answers to questions like ‘what are the upcoming corporate holidays?’, ‘what is the travel and expense policy?’ and eventually ‘how do I process a return for an online order?’.
Finance professionals at UBS are using AI-powered intelligent insights to review and approve client requests quickly
“These are examples of what we call ‘frontier firms’,” says Taylor. “They are organisations blending human ambition with AI-first innovation to maximise their potential and impact on society. These companies aren’t just deploying tools, they are embedding intelligence into every workflow, decision and process to amplify insight across their business.”
Microsoft identifies four key trends that set frontier companies apart from others.
“First, they empower employees to automate repetitive work so they can focus on creativity and strategy,” explains Taylor. “Second, they reimagine customer engagement through personalised, data-driven experiences. Third, they transform business processes for greater accuracy, speed and efficiency. Fourth, they accelerate innovation by bringing new product and experiences to market faster.”
One practical example comes from Lucerne Cantonal Hospital in Switzerland. Working with Microsoft and partner Polypoint, the hospital built an AI-powered shift-scheduling solution within Teams to cut planning time by two-thirds and free up caregivers to focus on patient care. Before the solution, nurses described creating monthly schedules for three daily shifts, seven days a week as “a game of Tetris”, where moving one cell triggered a cascade of adjustments.
More than 100 nurses spent two to three days each month organising these schedules. With AI handling the planning, staff now have time to provide better patient care and manage their teams more effectively.
Nurses at Lucerne Cantonal Hospital in Switzerland are saving two to three days each month organising work schedules, leaving more time for better patient care
“We have too few nurses and too much work, so if there is a way to give time back to the nurses, we want to do it,” says Michael Döring, the hospital’s chief nursing officer.
Frontier firms like Lucerne Cantonal Hospital are seeing measurable results, achieving up to three times higher returns from AI investments than late adopters, according to Taylor.
“This isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about unlocking new markets, business models and revenue streams,” she says. “AI is transforming how organisations engage with customers through personalisation at unprecedented scale. Ralph Lauren is a powerful example. The company built Ask Ralph, an AI-powered conversational styling companion using Azure AI. It delivers real-time outfit recommendations, styling tips and gift ideas, turning every customer interaction into a data driven, high-margin engagement that deepens loyalty and drives new revenue opportunities.”
German automotive manufacturer Mercedes Benz is using Azure AI to optimise its global production network across more than 30 plants.
“Innovation is deeply rooted in our DNA and fast forward to today, AI for us is our best colleague,” said Daniela Dimitrova, chief information officer at Mercedes, at Microsoft Ignite 2025. “With the Microsoft AI tools, we put a lot of power in the hands of our employees. We are bringing AI to the factory floor so we can analyse production data and improve efficiency across our factories.”
For example, Mercedes employees are alerted when there is a decrease in efficiency and can ask Digital Factory Chat, a self-serve platform to investigate the cause and analyse potential machine malfunctions. By deploying the AI solution, Mercedes reduced energy consumption by more than 20 per cent.
Mercedes is not alone in realising these kinds of gains; organisations across different sectors are accelerating similar outcomes and entering new markets with the support of Microsoft partners.
Microsoft Ignite 2025 showed how Mercedes-Benz is using Microsoft AI in its factories to reduce machine malfunctions and energy consumption
“Our partner ecosystem is the force multiplier,” says Taylor. “Partners design and build AI apps and agents, stand up secure data foundations, deploy and manage solutions at scale, and co-sell through our programmes and marketplace so customers realise value faster. That end-to-end motion – from advising on strategy to operating the solution – is how customers move from pilots to production and unlock new growth.”
For example, in the highly regulated life sciences sector, pharmaceutical company Hetero needed more than a basic infrastructure upgrade – it required a secure, scalable foundation that could support AI-driven insights and streamline complex quality and compliance processes. Working closely with Hetero and its subsidiary Audree Infotech, Cloud4C deployed a cloud-native architecture on Azure, addressing long-standing challenges around data fragmentation, manual reporting and operational bottlenecks.
The new architecture gave Hetero a single environment capable of supporting advanced analytics, automation and real-time decision making across 11 manufacturing plants. By modernising its core systems and introducing AI-powered workflows for root cause analysis and quality control, Hetero has cut infrastructure costs by 40 per cent, automated more than 4,000 documents each month and saved 13,500 working hours.
“Cloud4C’s work with Hetero is a clear example of partner-led transformation that improves operations and creates headroom to enter new markets,” says Taylor.
Hetero’s shift to a unified cloud architecture demonstrates the first step every organisation must take in bringing data into one governed, accessible environment so AI can generate meaningful impact.
“We’re starting to see a new set of technology patterns take shape across every sector,” says Taylor. “They’re not tied to a single product or workflow but to a fundamental shift in how organisations operate. The companies leading in this era of frontier firms aren’t just experimenting with AI; they’re embedding it into every workflow, decision and product.
“They’ve shifted from running IT to running intelligence. Cloud and AI are no longer technology choices; they’re becoming the business model itself. That’s exactly what Microsoft Foundry was designed for. It’s a unified Azure platform-as-a-service that brings together everything organisations need to build, customise and deploy AI solutions at scale.
Foundry enables teams to design and manage intelligent applications and agents that unlock insights from data, generate meaning at scale and continuously improve through iteration.”
Working with Foundry, Microsoft Fabric was built to break down siloed data and provide organisations with a single, unified view across all operations.
“At its core is OneLake, a logical data lake that provides a consistent, secure foundation for discovery, sharing and policy enforcement, enabling teams to collaborate on one trusted source of truth,” says Taylor.
Fabric also integrates a range of database services – including Azure HorizonDB, Azure DocumentDB, SQL Database and Cosmos DB – so organisations can run workloads across hybrid and multi-cloud environments without switching platforms. And with Azure Copilot, teams can manage specialised agents across the cloud lifecycle, streamlining AI-powered workflows and data-driven insights so products move from concept to market more efficiently.
Customers can use Microsoft’s broad library of AI models – from Microsoft, OpenAI, Hugging Face, Meta and Anthropic – to build customer copilots, autonomous agents or enhance their apps.
“This is all about deepening our commitment to bringing the best infrastructure, model choice and applications to our customers,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft, when speaking about the addition of Anthropic’s Claude to Foundry. Now, Azure is the only hyperscaler to offer both OpenAI and Anthropic models to empower organisations to build the best possible AI applications. Across industries, Microsoft ensures its AI solutions meet the specific challenges and regulatory requirements each sector faces.
“These technology patterns – unified cloud foundations, secure AI integration and domain-specific copilots – are repeatable across industries,” says Taylor. “Whether in healthcare, manufacturing or retail, we help organisations apply the same architecture to streamline supply chains, ensure compliance and accelerate innovation. By tailoring our approach to each industry’s unique needs, we enable companies to deploy AI responsibly at scale while driving measurable business impact.
“In financial services, for example, we’re helping partners like BlackRock modernise operations by re-architecting its Aladdin platform on Azure AI,” says Taylor. “Aladdin Copilot allows analysts and portfolio managers to query complex financial data in natural language and get immediate, actionable insights, all within a secure, fully governed workflow that meets strict compliance requirements.”
Alysa Taylor is chief marketing officer for commercial cloud and AI at Microsoft
The AI pattern for BlackRock integrates model reasoning, data orchestration and compliance checks within a single, governed workflow, ensuring every insight meets strict financial regulations. This means financial services professionals can get accurate replies when asking questions like ‘what is my exposure to companies building AI processors?’. For Microsoft, the real opportunity isn’t just using AI but about embedding intelligence into the DNA of a business.
“That’s when transformation truly happens,” explains Taylor. “It’s how organisations unlock new value, reshape processes and set the pace for what’s next. And this is exactly where our partners play a critical role. They bring deep industry expertise and an understanding of each customer’s unique challenges, helping them apply AI in ways that create measurable impact. Together, we’re not just deploying technology, we’re helping every organisation reimagine what’s possible and build the future of their industry.”
Partner perspectives
Three Microsoft partners share how they are helping customers leverage Microsoft technologies and AI tools to unlock new markets, create innovative products and reach audiences more effectively
“At Cisco, we’re enabling our customers to unlock new value by integrating advanced AI and Microsoft technologies into every workspace,” says Snorre Kjesbu, senior vice president and general manager of collaboration at Cisco. “With innovations like RoomOS 26 and our partnership on the Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform, organisations can harness secure, AI-powered collaboration across Microsoft Teams Rooms and Webex.”
“The Public Key Infrastructure industry is undergoing massive change,” says John Murray, vice president of sales for the Americas at GMO GlobalSign. “To prepare for it, GlobalSign customers are shifting from traditional certificate payment models to new options such as subject alternative name (SAN) licensing. We use Copilot to help quickly and accurately summarise unique SAN values per certificate, replacing time-consuming pivot table work and enabling precise license recommendations.”
“At Intermedia, we’re helping organisations get more from their Microsoft investments by unifying communication and collaboration into one intelligent experience,” says Mark Sher, senior vice president or product marketing at Intermedia. “Our Intermedia Intelligent Communications platform, Unite, integrates with Microsoft Teams so users can connect with customers and colleagues through high-quality voice, SMS and contact centre interactions without leaving Teams.”
Discover more insights from these partners and others, in the Winter 2025 issue of Technology Record. Don’t miss out – subscribe for free today and get future issues delivered straight to your inbox.