38 COVER STORY which listens during the patient visit and automatically creates a draft of the clinical notes, which then gets reviewed. Clinicians save just over four minutes per patient – totalling about an hour per day. That time goes back into patient care, but it also allows clinicians more space in their day. Burnout is coming down, and some can see more patients. “What matters is how the work changed. Documentation moved into the visit; the clinician stays in control and AI handles most of the administrative effort. That pattern of freeing up time and improving quality by redesigning the workflow is what we are now seeing more broadly.” Microsoft and its partners are focused on enabling the confidence that supports transformations like this. It starts with the platform, infrastructure, models, security and compliance capabilities – which Microsoft deploys across its own enterprise. “People need trust in the platforms they’re using – that those platforms provide the safeguards to protect sensitive data and critical workloads,” says Hertogh. “Before we bring AI capabilities to market, we use them ourselves at scale. That means embedding Copilot into daily work across tens of thousands of employees and measuring the impact. In our sales organisation, for example, teams using Copilot more frequently saw higher productivity. For some, that translated into more deals closed and measurable revenue lift. Importantly, we manage this as an operating model, not just a tool rollout. We run structured programmes to build habits and we continuously refine where AI adds the most value in each workflow.” Microsoft’s partner ecosystem transforms those tools into solutions tailored to individual organisations and industries. “In many ways, our partner ecosystem is what turns AI from a capability into a competitive advantage,” says Hertogh. “Their real strength is in helping customers drive business transformation and, in many cases, cultural transformation. It’s a relationship that moves quickly beyond technology, into education and enablement. Strong partners help customers redesign processes, build new habits and drive change through the organisation. They understand the nuances of healthcare, financial services, public sector, manufacturing – how work gets done, the regulatory constraints and where the real inefficiencies sit. That context makes it possible to apply AI in a way that delivers real value, not just technical capability. “In addition, partners play a critical role in connecting legacy systems, fragmented data and complex processes and embedding AI into existing workflows, systems and data estates so that it works in the flow of the business. It’s not just that you have access to AI – it’s how quickly you can apply, operationalise and differentiate with it. Partners help customers do that faster.” With these resources to support organisations, Hertogh sees a robust focus on long-term value creation emerging. “What comes next is about how work gets redesigned around AI,” he says. “The organisations that will move fastest over the next year won’t be the ones that deploy AI everywhere. They will be the ones that are clear about where it adds value, and match the right work to the right way of working with AI. “We are also seeing a shift in how people contribute. Our Work Trend Index data shows less time is being spent on step-bystep execution, while more is being invested in setting direction, making decisions and checking the quality of outputs. People are already producing work they could not create a year ago. This leads to a different kind of workplace where work will be coordinated across people and AI systems and the operating model defines who does what. Organisations that get this right will move faster and make better decisions. That is what we mean by a frontier firm.”
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