49 data and redesign customer and business processes around measurable outcomes. “But technology is only part of the answer. We recently announced a $2.5 billion investment in Microsoft Frontier Company, bringing together 6,000 industry and engineering experts to work side-by-side with customers. The model is outcomedriven: start with what success looks like, co-design solutions, deploy them into real workflows and continuously improve them against measurable business key performance indicators (KPIs).” Alongside this trusted platform, Bransten emphasises the need for deep industry expertise, AI engineering, change management and continuous improvement. “And let’s not forget that people are at the heart of all this,” she says. “Our ambition is to help organisations move beyond pilots and productivity gains towards true frontier transformation, while ensuring that what makes them unique – their intelligence – remains protected and continues to compound over time.” A ‘customer zero’ approach is central to that understanding. It sees Microsoft and its partners using internal AI deployments to prove business value, before passing tried and tested approaches to their clients. “We’re working across numerous teams at Microsoft to build a library of reusable evidence and lessons learned that we can share with our customers so they can move from experimentation to operational impact with more speed and confidence. In Microsoft Finance for example, AI agents are helping collections teams move faster and make better decisions. They’ve helped to cut case-handling time by 22 per cent and reduce customer inquiry-handling times by as much as 60 per cent,” says Bransten, who also highlights EY as a case in point. “After deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot to 150,000 employees and reporting a 15 per cent productivity gain, EY is expanding the Microsoft 365 Frontier Suite across a workforce of more than 400,000 people,” says Bransten. “Across key processes, it reports 95 per cent faster lead times, more than 37 per cent lower finance operating costs and up to a 90 per cent reduction in manual workloads. That experience gives EY practical transformation insight it can bring to customers. The ecosystem becomes most powerful when partners run the technology themselves, codify what works and apply those lessons with industry depth.” There is also ample evidence of AI deployments having measurable impacts on customers’ businesses across industries and geographies. For instance, global luxury jewellery retailer Chow Tai Fook has deployed more than 400 customised AI agents supporting over 24,000 employees. “The company’s AI Fook ecosystem gives frontline associates immediate access to product knowledge, inventory insights and personalised recommendations,” says Bransten. “As a result, it reports core process efficiency gains above 70 per cent and sales conversion improvements of up to 57 per cent.” In financial services, Banco Popular Dominicano transformed operational risk from periodic, sample-based reviews into continuous AI-powered supervision. “Banco Popular Dominicano’s agent ecosystem now monitors 100 per cent of the operational risk universe in real time, up from roughly 40 per cent, while delivering seven times greater analytical capacity and reducing manual effort by 70 per cent,” says Bransten. “This improves both control and the speed with which the bank can respond.” Meanwhile, automotive manufacturer BMW worked with Microsoft Azure and Foundry Agent Service to modernise its “ AI is grounded in trusted organisational context, connected to a real workflow and measured against a business or human outcome” COVER STORY
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQ1NTk=