By Alice Chambers |
Nicole Dezen, chief partner officer and corporate vice president of global partner sales at Microsoft, emphasised how collaboration with partners is central to scaling AI adoption across industries at Microsoft Ignite 2025. “Microsoft succeeds when our partners succeed,” she said in the ‘Powering Frontier Partnerships’ keynote.
This commitment to partnership was further illustrated in a panel discussion, where Nick Parker, chief business officer and president of worldwide sales and solutions at Microsoft, and representatives from LSEG, Kantar and Kore.ai shared real-world examples of AI and digital transforamtion in action.
“AI is core to how we’re thinking about the whole business – from how we solve problems and serve our customers,” said Emily Prince, group head of analytics and AI at LSEG. “We have an extraordinary breadth of data – over 33 petabytes – but it hasn’t always been accessible. AI gives us the opportunity to unlock that data, enabling people to build with trusted information in ways they never have before.”
Prince explained that LSEG’s partnership with Microsoft started by identifying the key challenges for financial services professionals. Today, AI is applied to solve those challenges, empowering LSEG’s customers to work more efficiently. “We’ve built our entire experimentation platform on Microsoft Foundry and have hundreds of experiments running through it,” she said. “This is not just for engineers; it’s for everyone to participate in AI adoption.”
Read more: LSEG’s latest announcement with Microsoft
Chris Jansen, CEO of Kantar, shared how his firm is using Microsoft AI tools to accelerate ad testing from six weeks to just 90 seconds: “Last month we tested 2,500 Coca-Cola ads in two days and predicted their market success with 90 per cent accuracy.”
Kore.ai’s CEO and founder, Raj Koneru, highlighted how organisations can harness AI effectively by automating processes, upskilling staff, and implementing the right frameworks for rapid, high-impact deployment.
Meanwhile, Kyndryl’s session ‘Forging New Frontiers’ showcased how it helped Forza Steel modernise operations with AI by leveraging SAP and Microsoft technologies. Forza Steel adopted Microsoft’s ecosystem for its comprehensive cloud capabilities, supporting SAP RISE on Microsoft Azure and enabling unified operations with real-time data. Juan Daniel Alonso, chief information officer at Forza Steel, said the goal was process standardisation, improved productivity, and real-time visibility through automation, IoT, data analytics, and AI. Clay Caldwell, senior vice president of SAP Growth at Kyndryl, emphasised that data quality is critical for AI success, noting Kyndryl’s role in “cleaning” and maintaining Forza Steel’s data.
Plus, ControlUp revealed how its tool ControlUp Migrate for Windows 365 helps IT teams modernise infrastructure without disruption. It automates the migration of Azure Virtual Desktop environments and other Azure virtual machines (VM) to Windows 365 Cloud PCs, providing intelligent VM selection, automated compatibility checks, and seamless integration with ControlUp management. Scott Manchester, vice president of product for Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop, said the solution “simplifies the migration process and helps organisations accelerate their journey to Windows 365 with confidence.”
Yubico highlighted how its joint solutions with Microsoft strengthen security and compliance. David Treece, vice president of standards and policy strategy at Yubico, together with Swaroop Krishnamurthy, principal product lead for Microsoft Entra, showcased how hardware-bound passkeys like YubiKeys integrate seamlessly into Microsoft environments, helping organisations meet stringent security mandates and protect users from persistent threats.
Read more from Microsoft and its partners at Ignite