Each quarter, I share a collection of customer and partner stories from around the world that highlight the incredible technological advancements shaping the future of industry. As a partner of choice, we are committed to helping organizations accelerate AI Transformation to unlock opportunities and realize material business value. Our ability to bend the curve on AI innovation is allowing us to live truer to our mission than ever before: to empower our customers and partners to achieve more.

I am sharing an additional blog this quarter because we are seeing so much inspiring AI Transformation and pragmatic innovation with our customers. Their impressive results are benefiting employees, businesses, and industry, and I would like to expand on a handful of stories that crystallize the tangible impact AI is having on organizations that embrace it:

Digital financial services firm Ally Financial is leveraging Microsoft Azure and Azure OpenAI Service to reduce manual tasks for its customer service associates, freeing up time for them to reinvent how they engage with customers. Previously, associates needed to take notes and write summaries after every call, which competed with the amount of time and attention they could give to their customers. By using generative AI to automate manual tasks, Ally empowered its associates to deliver a better, more personal experience while protecting vital customer data through a production-ready solution in only eight weeks. The new solution has cut associates’ post-call effort by 30% while capturing critical information automatically with over 85% accuracy — even finding details they may have previously missed in their conversations.

Global travel technology provider Amadeus deployed Copilot for Microsoft 365 to help empower its workforce, beginning with early adoption across a subset of employees. More than 90% of these employees are regularly using Copilot to save time drafting emails, summarize meetings and actions, and more effectively search for information across the web and internal assets. Now, the company is rolling out the solution across its wider workforce so employees around the world can benefit from its time-saving options to focus on more strategic tasks.

Global life sciences leader Bayer is using Copilot for Microsoft 365 to deliver productivity and collaboration benefits across its Crop Science, Pharmaceutical and Consumer Health divisions. With more than 700 use cases identified, they are already seeing a big impact from its implementation. Copilot is helping to summarize communications and expedite the search for information, saving employees hundreds of hours. Bayer also developed the Model Store — a Copilot plugin leveraging the Microsoft Teams platform — to search for information using natural language to close communication gaps between data scientists and laboratory researchers, locate the source of data faster, reduce barriers to finding information and help collaborate with the expert source. For example, Copilot helped a U.S. researcher identify a predictive model already developed by a researcher in Germany, preventing a duplicate model from being developed and saving two to three months of work.

Multinational brewer Carlsberg unified its developer organization around an integrated platform using GitHub Enterprise — reducing their toolchain from six tools to a single platform. This allowed for the seamless and effective integration of GitHub Copilot, which enhanced the synergy in their workflow and removed development roadblocks by providing valuable coding suggestions. Copilot adoption has been overwhelmingly positive, enhancing productivity across teams and proving to be a valuable learning tool for cloud developers by easing the learning curve required when working with new languages and platforms.

One of the top media companies in the world, Dentsu, is using Copilot for Microsoft 365 to revolutionize workflows, support its talent and help rethink its services across a growing number of channels. By reducing and removing tactical tasks, employees can focus on the strategic part of their work to collaborate creatively. Employees are saving 30-40 minutes a day using Copilot for tasks such as summarizing chats, generating presentations and building executive summaries. They are reinvesting their time to focus on more thoughtful work without interruption, while having content served up within their workflows. Employees are now averaging 30-60 minutes less time on first drafts of messaging and 80% say they have a very positive view of Copilot.

Food industry giant Grupo Bimbo turned to Microsoft’s Azure AI technologies — including Azure OpenAI Service, Form Recognizer and Cognitive Search — to develop a copilot solution in two weeks that helped employees make queries about company policies. The copilot for internal control and risk management employs advanced AI technology to seamlessly convey information in a synthesized format, complemented by readily accessible reference links that pinpoint the exact sources of global policy. It can also respond in all languages where the company has collaborators and operations, no matter what language the query is originally made in. The primary benefit for the company has been its ability to promote compliance across 34 countries. Now, they are replicating the technology to build a copilot product that empowers all individuals and departments. For example, the copilot is helping their communications team draft emails, craft content for social media, propose images for marketing products, translate text and more.

U.S. healthcare organization Providence faced a deluge of incoming messages that required triage and interfered with the time providers needed to spend with their patients. Providence clinicians, informaticists and AI specialists developed a tool based on Azure OpenAI Service named ProvARIA to classify messages, direct them to the appropriate caregiver and free providers to focus on patient care. Providence piloted the tool with four separate clinics representing 27 different doctors and nurse practitioners, funneling all electronic communications into a centralized inbox in a single office. A group of medical assistants worked together to address the messages, processing about 10,000 messages in one month with a 35% improvement in turnaround time. Other groups within Providence enthusiastically joined the pilot, introducing efficiencies that allowed clinics to manage messages with fewer medical assistants — a boon when the limited number of qualified medical assistants is in high demand. Providence medical assistants are now processing 5,000 messages per day, covering 145 Providence clinics and 650 providers. The most profound outcome is one that cannot be measured, and one that had not been anticipated: caregivers have gained peace of mind knowing they have the time and focus to help all patients who need it.

One of the largest digital telco companies in Asia, Telkomsel, needed a way to ensure its customer support team was not overwhelmed by sharply rising demand. The company upgraded a virtual assistant within two weeks with Azure OpenAI Service to improve interactions across its 159 million mobile subscriber base and 8.5 million fixed broadband customers. The virtual agent is helping customer support agents deal with more complex issues without the distraction of routine inquiries and is reducing burnout from facing long call queues. By infusing light-hearted humor and emoticons into the conversation, the new virtual assistant “Veronika” intelligently combines the latest information from multiple FAQs to supply more insightful answers with a personal touch. Telkomsel has scaled the solution to handle up to 5 million transactions per month while delivering the robust security it requires. Since its introduction, self-service interactions have risen from 19% to 45%, with a 140% increase in average messages per user. Customer service agents who used to handle 8,000 calls a day now handle 1,000, freeing up time to increase their cross-selling efforts.

Leading telecommunications and technology company Telstra has scaled its AI adoption following promising pilots of generative AI solutions with front-line team members. Leveraging the Microsoft Cloud and Azure OpenAI Service capabilities, two pilot programs were developed: One Sentence Summary and Ask Telstra. Using Azure OpenAI Service’s large language models, One Sentence Summary transforms customer notes, interactions and transactions into a concise summary of a customer’s recent history and status. The solution enhances the efficiency and quality of interactions, reducing the need for customers to repeat information. Ninety percent of employees using the tool saved time and increased effectiveness, resulting in 20% less follow-up contact. Ask Telstra enables employees to search the company’s extensive internal knowledge base quickly and easily for information, powered by Azure OpenAI Service and Azure AI Search. Employees were able to gather information faster and more easily for customers, with over 80% agreeing the technology had a positive impact on customer interactions. Now the company is rolling out the pilots across all contact centers and store teams throughout 2024.

To pursue its digital transformation efforts, global multi-energy company TotalEnergies launched Microsoft Copilot to provide employees with a secure AI chat solution based on internal data. After a successful test phase across 300 employees, the company also launched Copilot for Microsoft 365 for their employees, resulting in improved operational efficiency and user adoption. The company is also focused on a new program to support and enhance employee skilling to get the most out of these new AI tools, including implementation of low code-no code solutions with Microsoft Power Platform.

To alleviate an overwhelming workload for doctors and medical staff in major cities across Vietnam, VinBrain introduced an AI platform into hospital workflows: DrAid. Operating on an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) data system, DrAid harnesses Microsoft technologies —including Azure OpenAI Service —to aid physicians in diagnostic processes, treatment planning and the efficient management of burgeoning medical records. This platform is the first and only AI-driven X-ray diagnostic tool in Southeast Asia to receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) certification, propelling Vietnam into the top six nations globally with FDA-approved AI products for chest X-ray diagnostics. Comprehensive screening is achieving an accuracy rate of up to 95%, and advanced imaging capabilities allow for the detection of liver cancer tumors as small as 5mm to help facilitate early-stage intervention and curative treatment. The tool is also reducing initial screening times by 80-85% and lowering time to analyze cases from 30 minutes to 5 minutes per case.

Leading manufacturer Volvo Group needed the ability to extract data from images — such as photographs, stamps and printed text with handwritten notes over it — and translate documents to and from multiple languages to help its workers streamline invoices and claims document processing. Built on Microsoft Azure, Volvo created a six-week pilot program with a solution using Microsoft Azure AI services and AI Document Intelligence. After a four-month production timeline, they launched a solution that simplified document processing and meets the objectives of data extraction that has saved employees more than 10,000 manual hours — about 850-plus manual hours per month. Now, employees are enjoying their work more, with additional time to focus on innovation and tasks related to their specific skill sets.

To scale digital platforms to more than 300 million businesses, public sector organizations and consumers across Europe and Africa, Vodafone is leveraging Microsoft’s generative AI to provide highly personalized and differentiated customer experiences across multiple channels. Their investment is already reinventing how Vodafone engages with customers and accelerating digital transformation. Early testing shows that AI-powered assistants are reducing average handling times and providing AI-generated responses with greater accuracy. Thanks to faster and more accurate responses, the company is also improving customer satisfaction scores.

I hope you find these stories of AI Transformation as promising and inspiring as I do. I invite you to read my January pre-earnings blog to learn more about how customers and partners are unlocking AI opportunity across industries: Embracing AI Transformation: How customers and partners are driving pragmatic innovation to achieve business outcomes with the Microsoft Cloud. I remain grateful for the opportunity we have at Microsoft to help our customers and partners realize pragmatic business value with AI, and look forward to finding ways we can help your organization achieve more.

The post From vision to value realization: A closer look at how customers are embracing AI Transformation to unlock innovation and deliver business outcomes appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

Just over a year ago, the healthcare industry was energized by the debut of generative AI and the promise this new technology held for delivering real-world outcomes that positively impact clinicians, patients, health systems, and the broader health and life sciences ecosystem. Since then, it has been a catalyst for the development of new use cases, opening possibilities for an entirely new era of innovation — and this shows no signs of slowing down. We continue to see AI adoption within healthcare grow, with 79% of healthcare organizations reporting that they’re currently using AI technology, according to a Microsoft-commissioned study through IDC[i]. AI also has a demonstrable business value, with healthcare organizations realizing a return on their AI investments within 14 months, along with an average return of $3.20 for every $1 they invest in AI[ii].

Working alongside healthcare organizations, Microsoft is making the promise of AI real by empowering the industry to tackle its biggest challenges and create a real difference in the lives of clinicians and patients. At the 2024 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition, we are highlighting how providers are adopting generative AI solutions and the impact the technology is making.

• Stanford Medicine and Microsoft announced the enterprise-wide deployment of Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience Copilot (DAX Copilot), providing conversational, ambient and generative AI to Stanford Medicine’s clinicians. This deployment aligns with Stanford Medicine’s mission to alleviate physician burnout and enhance patient care by streamlining administrative tasks. Stanford Medicine’s commitment to innovation, coupled with DAX Copilot’s ability to automate clinical documentation, has led to significant improvements in efficiency and patient-focused care. DAX Copilot enables healthcare organizations to adopt AI-powered clinical documentation applications at scale, leveraging existing investments in our trusted and extensible Dragon solutions. Stanford Health Care clinicians who used DAX Copilot reported through a preliminary survey that 96% of physicians stated that it was easy to use, and 78% reported that it expedited clinical notetaking. About two-thirds reported that DAX Copilot saved time.
• WellSpan Health announced its widespread adoption of DAX Copilot, enhancing patient-physician interactions during exam room and telehealth visits. Leveraging generative AI, DAX Copilot automates clinical note drafting, allowing physicians to focus entirely on patients without the distraction of manual documentation. WellSpan’s decision to adopt DAX Copilot builds upon its successful use of Nuance solutions to streamline clinical workflows and improve patient care. Surveys indicate high satisfaction among physicians and patients, with DAX significantly improving the quality of interactions and reducing documentation burdens. This initiative reflects WellSpan’s commitment to delivering exceptional care experiences and addressing physician burnout by providing innovative tools to enhance efficiency and personalize care delivery.
• Providence and Microsoft announced a strategic collaboration aimed at accelerating AI innovation in healthcare. Leveraging Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare and Azure as a standard platform, the collaboration focuses on delivering AI-powered applications to improve interoperability, generate clinical insights and enhance care delivery. Past successes from this relationship include Providence’s migration to cloud solutions and the adoption of AI-powered applications like Nuance’s DAX Copilot. By leveraging their combined expertise, the collaboration aims to rapidly scale existing solutions and create more personalized experiences for patients and clinicians. Through this initiative, Providence aims to transform healthcare delivery and improve outcomes by harnessing the power of the cloud and advanced AI technologies.

Reinforcing our commitment to Responsible AI

As incredible as AI – and all its potential – is, the important role clinicians play in determining its use and enabling responsible AI guidelines is vital. That’s why we remain steadfast in our commitment to our Responsible AI principles, which help to ensure safe, fair and responsible use of the technology. As part of this ongoing commitment, Microsoft has joined a consortium of healthcare leaders to announce the formation of the Trustworthy & Responsible AI Network (TRAIN), creating one of the first health AI networks aimed at operationalizing responsible AI principles to improve the quality, safety and trustworthiness of AI in health.

Serving as the technology-enabling partner for TRAIN, Microsoft is working with members that include AdventHealth, Advocate Health, Boston Children’s Hospital, Cleveland Clinic, Duke Health, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Mass General Brigham, MedStar Health, Mercy, Mount Sinai Health System, Northwestern Medicine, Providence, Sharp HealthCare, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and Vanderbilt University Medical Center – to share best practices and provide tools to enable measurement of outcomes associated with the implementation of AI. Additionally, OCHIN, which serves a national network of community health organizations with solutions, expertise, clinical insights and tailored technologies, and TruBridge, a partner and conduit to community healthcare, will work with TRAIN to help ensure that every organization, regardless of resources, has access to the benefits the network offers.

Additionally, we continue to take the necessary steps to ensure healthcare organizations can implement technology in compliance with the highest levels of security and privacy in mind. We recently announced the preview of healthcare data solutions in Microsoft Fabric, which enables healthcare organizations to break down data silos and harmonize their disparate healthcare data in a single unified store where analytics and AI workloads can operate at-scale. We are also pleased to share that Fabric now supports HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliance, allowing our U.S. healthcare industry customers and partners to compliantly use Fabric to store, process and analyze data.

Driving innovation through the Microsoft partner ecosystem

Microsoft’s unmatched global ecosystem of trusted partners is one of the key components that helps drive our innovation forward. This week, Cognizant announced that its TriZetto Assistant on Facets will leverage Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Semantic Kernel to provide access to generative AI within the TriZetto user interface. This new collaboration will help increase productivity and efficiency for healthcare payers and providers, while ensuring timely responses and improved care for patients.

Additionally, Microsoft for Startups announced a new collaboration with the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Physician Innovation Network. The Physician Innovation Network is a powerful match-making tool developed by the AMA to connect physicians, care team members, business liaisons and entrepreneurs in a shared mission to enhance healthcare. The collaboration extends the reach of the Physician Innovation Network to all startup founders in the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub, so whether they’re driven to improve healthcare, collaborate with industry leaders or learn from healthcare experts, they will have access to a unique space for connection and innovation.

Without a doubt, these are incredibly exciting times, and we are proud to see our customers and partners adopting Microsoft’s generative AI solutions and putting them to use in the real world to make a meaningful impact in the lives of clinicians and patients.  We look forward to continuing to play a leading role in fostering innovation with generative AI, and empowering healthcare providers and partners across the entire health and life sciences industries with leading-edge and responsible AI technologies that contribute to better experiences and outcomes in healthcare.

 

_____

[i] IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Microsoft, The Business Opportunity of AI: How Leading Organizations Around the World Are Using AI to Drive Impact Across Every Industry, IDC #US51364223, Nov. 2023.

[ii] IDC Resource Map Document: IDC Business Value of AI Survey, sponsored by Microsoft, IDC #US51331223, Nov. 2023.

The post Microsoft makes the promise of AI in healthcare real through new collaborations with healthcare organizations and partners appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

Today we kick off the 14^th Microsoft Ability Summit, an annual event to bring together thought leaders to discuss how we accelerate accessibility to help bridge the Disability Divide.

There are three key themes to this year’s summit: Build, Imagine, and Include. “Build” invites us to explore how to build accessibly and inclusively by leaning on the insights of disabled talent. “Imagine” dives into best practices for architecting accessible buildings, events, content and products. And “Include” highlights the issues and opportunities AI presents for creators, developers and engineers.

Katy Jo Wright and Dave McCarthy discuss Katy Jo’s journey living with the complex disability, Chronic Lyme Disease. Get insights from deaf creator and performer Leila Hanaumi; international accessibility leaders Sara Minkara, U.S. Special Advisor on International Disability Rights, U.S. Department of State; and  Stephanie Cadieux, Chief Accessibility Officer, Government of Canada. And we’ll be digging into mental health with singer, actor and mental health advocate, Michelle Williams.

We’ll also be launching a few things along the way.

Advancing accessible technology

Accessible technology is crucial to empowering the 1.3 billion-plus people with disabilities globally. With this new chapter of AI, the possibilities are growing, as is the responsibility to get it right. We are learning where AI can be impactful, from the potential to shorten the gap between thoughts and action, to making it easier to code and create. But there is more to do, and we will continue to leverage every tool in the technology toolbox to advance accessibility.

Today we’ll be highlighting the latest technology and tools from Microsoft to help achieve this goal including:

• Copilot for Windows, making accessibility easier. Beginning late March 2024, new accessibility skills are being enabled in Windows. Ask Copilot for Windows to launch Live Captions, Narrator and other accessibility features. More: Windows Blog
• M365 empowering creators to build accessible content. Including Accessibility Assistant, a set of tools to help creators produce accessible content available today in Insider preview for Word and sharing that Outlook and PowerPoint are coming soon! Ales Holecek will also be sharing some examples and early research on neurodiversity and M365 Copilot which reduces time to create content and shortens the gap between thoughts and action.
• Azure AI for Accessibility, today sharing six new examples including:
  • Seeing AI is now available in an additional 14 languages (total 33) and will be rolling out the latest generative AI models, including richer descriptions of images and chat capability for photos and documents.
  • Azure AI Audio Description solution accelerator, new upcoming solution accelerator that uses Azure GPT-4 Turbo with Vision to describe videos for people who are blind or low vision. WPP will be demonstrating how this works, and the solution accelerator is now open for sign-ups.

Technology can also help tackle long enduring challenges, like finding a cure for ALS (Motor Neuron Disease). With Azure, we are proudly supporting ALS Therapy Development Institute (TDI) and Answer ALS to almost double the clinical and genomic data available for research. In 2021, Answer ALS provided open access to its research through an Azure Data Portal, Neuromine. This data has since enabled over 300 independent research projects around the world. The addition of ALS TDI’s data from the ongoing ALS Research Collaborative (ARC) study will allow researchers to accelerate the journey to find a cure.

We will also be previewing some of our ongoing work to use Custom Neural Voice to empower people with ALS and other speech disabilities to have their voice. We have been working with the community including Team Gleason for some time and are committed to making sure this technology is used for good and plan to launch later in the year.

Accessibility as a fundamental right

To build inclusively in an increasingly digital world, we need to protect fundamental rights and will be sharing partnerships advancing this across the community throughout the day.

This includes:

• A discussion with Ilene Arenberg and Tanya Harris on access to competitive integrated employment and economic equity, talking about the workplace and fair compensation.
• The British Association for Supported Employment (BASE) will share their work to support disabled, neurodivergent and disadvantaged people in the U.K. to find and maintain careers. They have been growing digital skills using Microsoft Teams and community training to modernize the supported employment sector.
• The Hunger Project will talk about the importance of connectivity as a foundation to accessibility. It is working with community partners in Malawi and around the world to provide access to connectivity and support for accessible spaces, training materials and digital accessibility.
• Rijksmuseum will discuss their partnership with the blind and low vision community to bring detailed text descriptions to over 1 million pieces of art using Azure AI Computer Vision and Azure OpenAI. This video brings the experience to life.

Next steps, accelerating your accessibility journey

All through the Ability Summit, industry leaders will be sharing their learnings and best practices. Today we are posting four new Microsoft playbooks, sharing our learnings from working on our physical, event and digital environment. This includes a new Mental Health toolkit, with tips for product makers to build experiences that support mental health conditions, created in partnership with Mental Health America. And “Building Accessible Campus,” with best practices from our Global Workplace Services team, responsible for our global building footprint including the new Redmond headquarters campus.

Please join us to watch content on demand via www.aka.ms/AbilitySummit. Technical support is always available via Microsoft’s Disability Answer Desk.  Thank you for your partnership and commitment to build a more accessible future for people with disabilities around the world.

The post Ability Summit 2024: Advancing accessibility with AI technology and innovation appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

Today we’re announcing the public preview of Microsoft Copilot for Finance, the newest Copilot offering designed for business functions that extends Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 and revolutionizes how finance teams approach their daily work. Copilot for Finance joins Copilot for Sales and Copilot for Service, now generally available, to provide AI-powered, role-based workflow automation, recommendations and guided actions in the flow of work.

Finance departments are critical partners in strategic decisions impacting the direction of a company. Eighty percent of finance leaders and teams face challenges to take on more strategic work outside the operational portions of their roles[1]. However, 62% of finance professionals say they are stuck in the drudgery of data entry and review cycles [2]. Copilot for Finance can help free up time for finance to play more of a strategic role in delivering counsel and insights to the business by streamlining financial tasks, automating workflows and providing insights in the flow of work.

Copilot for Finance includes Copilot for Microsoft 365, which means it supercharges Excel, Outlook and other widely used productivity apps with workflow and data-specific insights for the finance professional. Copilot for Finance draws on essential context from your existing financial data sources, including traditional Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 and SAP, and the Microsoft Graph.

In public preview today, Copilot for Finance introduces several key features to enhance financial operations:

• Helps financial analysts quickly conduct a variance analysis in Excel using natural language prompts to review data sets for anomalies, risks and unmatched values. This type of analysis helps finance provide strategic insights to business leaders about where it is meeting, exceeding or falling short of planned financial outcomes and why.
• Simplifies the reconciliation process in Excel with automated data structure comparisons and guided troubleshooting to help move from insight to action, which helps ensure the reliability and accuracy of financial records.
• Provides a complete summary of relevant customer account details in Outlook, such as balance statements and invoices, to expedite the collections process.
• Enables customers to turn raw data in Excel into presentation-ready visuals and reports ready to be shared across Outlook and Teams.

Customers transforming business operations with Microsoft Copilot

The Copilot offerings designed for business functions help workers tackle a common problem: getting from insights to impact – with the relevant data and workflows specific to their roles. The latest Work Trend Index survey revealed that people are drowning in data. Roughly a quarter of their day is spent searching for information – roughly 50% of the information they consume each day is deemed necessary for their job, and a recent survey found roles like sales, finance and supply chain have role-specific needs from their data.

Copilot helps break down information and application silos while actively deriving insights, recommendations and guidance from a variety of data sources — all in accordance with Microsoft’s responsible AI principles. With Microsoft Copilot Studio, businesses can further customize Copilot for business processes inside of Copilot for Microsoft 365 and its role-based extensions.

Copilot for Sales is already helping sellers at more than 30,000 organizations. Companies including dentsu, Lumen Technologies, Northern Trust, Schneider Electric, Visa and hundreds more are empowering their employees with Copilot across their sales, service and finance departments.

Here is what a few of the companies had to say:

• “Artificial intelligence is transforming the way businesses operate and thrive. At dentsu, we are constantly searching for ways to bring the power of generative AI to all our employees with a framework defined on ethical and responsible AI principles. Building on the existing use cases we’ve defined to empower our workforce with Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Copilot for Sales, we are excited to participate in the preview of Microsoft Copilot for Finance. We see potential for Copilot for Finance to accelerate the impact of our finance professionals by optimizing routine processes, and we anticipate efficiency gains will free up finance capacity to focus on performance across our organization.” – Carolyn Isaacs, Global Director Finance Services, dentsu
• “Northern Trust’s digital workplace transformation is rooted in empowering our employees with technology that enhances and optimizes the services that they provide our clients. Deploying Microsoft Copilot for Service is a milestone in this transformation journey and we are excited for the potential of this AI-powered solution to help modernize our client relations organization, streamline processes for our employees, and elevate our client experience.” – Shaelyn Otikor SVP, Head of Global Digital Workplace Strategy, Asset Servicing, Northern Trust
• “Building on our 30-year history of embracing AI, Visa is on a journey to roll out generative AI across our entire company to empower our employees and develop new solutions to serve and protect our cardholders, merchants and the broader ecosystem. We’ve seen our employees embrace the broad rollout of Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, and we’re excited to continue to bring employees new ways to take advantage of the technology, transforming the ways in which we work and how we service our clients.” – Don Hobson, Chief Information Officer, Visa

At Microsoft, we are also an AI-powered organization, leveraging Copilot for Sales and Copilot for Service to improve seller and agent workflows and transform customer experiences:

• Microsoft Copilot for Sales empowers sellers to close deals faster with AI-assisted insights and recommendations. Our study of Microsoft sellers who use Copilot for Sales at least weekly found it makes them more productive, saving an average of 90 minutes per week – and 67% reported it allowed them to spend more time with customers.
  • “We have seen firsthand that an AI-powered sales organization is a more successful sales organization. Not only has Copilot for Sales helped our global sales team simplify tasks and save time, but it has also strengthened our customer relationships with AI-supported insights and recommendations that are personalized and tailored to each customer.” – Judson Althoff, Microsoft EVP and Chief Commercial Officer
• Microsoft Copilot for Service is modernizing the contact center with AI to enhance service experiences and boost agent productivity. In Microsoft’s customer service department – one of the largest in the world – there has been a 12% reduction in average case handling times (the time actively spent on resolving customer cases via chat) in two different customer support business areas while using similar capabilities in Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Service. The benefits and use cases from our own Copilot deployment will continue to shape Copilot for Service and its capabilities.
  • “Generative AI has been a game-changer for our own contact center at Microsoft. Agents spend less time searching for information, allowing them to focus more time on helping customers solve complex challenges. Moreover, newer agents experience significant benefits, feeling more confident and capable in their roles. This has led to reduced onboarding times and increased job satisfaction.” – Mala Anand, Microsoft CVP Customer Experience & Success
• Microsoft Copilot for Finance streamlines financial processes and surfaces insights for better-informed decision making. Microsoft’s world-class finance organization has long prioritized adoption of AI and automation tools to modernize operations, reduce financial risk and support the company’s priorities with strategic insights. The team has helped inform the Copilot for Finance product capabilities and roadmap.
  • “Our finance organization is just like any other – looking for technology to help us do our work in a more efficient and impactful way – and we’re excited to track our journey as customer zero of Microsoft Copilot for Finance” – Cory Hrncirik, Modern Finance Lead, Microsoft

Companies of all sizes are moving beyond AI experimentation and embracing Microsoft Copilot to strategically empower those closest to their customer interactions and critical operations to create new business value. To get started with the new Copilot for Finance, visit: aka.ms/CopilotforFinancePreview.

 

 

[1] Future of Finance Trends | Microsoft Dynamics 365

[2] Metric of the Month: Time Allocation in Finance | CFO

The post Introducing Microsoft Copilot for Finance – the newest Copilot offering in Microsoft 365 designed to transform modern finance appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

2023 was a year of exciting growth and innovation here at Microsoft. This year’s focus is to empower our customers and partners through AI transformation, and we’re excited to share what will be an impactful lineup of events for 2024. Attending any of these events provides you with the opportunity to learn, grow and make defining connections with experts from around the world.

Expect to see enhancements in some of this year’s events. Azure AI-powered natural language assistants will provide personalized session recommendations, summarize content and answer your event-related questions. To meet the needs of a global audience, we are also offering options to participate in person, online and on-demand so you can choose what format works best for you. We structure these events to support the goals of our audiences and ensure that anyone attending has a great experience.

Visit our events site to find out which ones are right for you.

Microsoft AI Tour 

It’s not too late to register for this ongoing series of one-day, in-person experiences around the world. These events bring together those on the cutting edge of innovation — including decision-makers, industry experts, thought leaders and developers — to focus on how AI will revolutionize work. So far, we’ve welcomed thousands of senior leaders and developers in six locations around the globe with keynotes highlighting the latest innovations in AI. Tour stops remain in Berlin, Paris, São Paulo and Seoul, where you can attend interactive workshops and learn how you can unlock the power of AI. Go to the Microsoft AI Tour  site to sign up.

Microsoft Build

In-demand experts, distinguished engineers and developers are gathering in Seattle for our annual Microsoft Build. This celebration of technology is a chance to hear the latest announcements and get hands-on with new technology. Learn how to create new features and opportunities with AI and copilots, dive deep into the latest tech, and develop the skills that are needed for tomorrow — today.

Seattle, Washington & online | May 21-23, 2024

Microsoft Inspire: the next chapter

We are evolving the event previously known as Microsoft Inspire. In July, we will kick off our fiscal year with partners in tandem with our Microsoft sellers by providing a digital engagement to share strategic priorities, investments and key program changes. We look forward to sharing more details soon.
Online | July 2024

With this change, we will also welcome partners to join us at Microsoft Ignite for an in-person experience in November to see the latest Microsoft innovations, network and celebrate the Partner of the Year Award winners.

Microsoft Ignite

Our biggest event of the year is getting even bigger for customers and partners, and we’re returning to Chicago!

Join IT professionals, implementers, developers, architects and more in checking out the latest tech Microsoft has to offer. With demos and firsthand access to new AI solutions and copilots, this is your chance to explore the latest tools, receive deep technical training and get questions answered by Microsoft experts. We’re bringing the best of our customer and partner event experiences to the Windy City and online so you can participate in the festivities and discover how AI can enhance your organization.

In addition to seeing the latest technology firsthand, senior leaders and decision-makers are invited to learn more about how to lead in the era of AI and find robust networking opportunities.

If you’re looking to expand your AI knowledge, create connections and push the boundaries of what we can accomplish together, there’s no better event than Microsoft Ignite.

Chicago, Illinois & online | Nov. 18-22, 2024

Find an event in your region

Visit our full global events catalog for a complete list of events, including some that could even be in your area. There, you can filter events by product, role or industry to find something specific to your needs or interests.

We hope to see you

It’s very exciting to bring you opportunities that showcase the growth and innovation that’s being done at Microsoft to help you do more with AI. Whether you’re a customer, partner, IT professional, decision-maker or developer, if you’re looking to achieve more ― there’s an event for you.

The post Join us in 2024 — events to get your teams AI-ready appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

AI is redefining digital transformation for every industry, including telecommunications. Every operator’s AI journey will be distinct. But each AI journey requires cloud-native transformation, which provides the foundation for any organization to harness the full potential of AI, driving innovation, efficiency and business value.

This new era of AI will create incredible economic growth and represent a profound shift as a percentage impact on global GDP, which is just over $100 trillion. So, when we look at the potential value driven by this next generation of AI technology, we may see a boost to global GDP of an additional $7 trillion to $10 trillion.

Embracing AI will help operators unlock new revenue streams, deliver superior customer experiences and pioneer future innovations for growth.

The AI-powered future cloud for telecommunications

Operators can now leverage cloud services that are adaptive, purpose-built for telecommunications and span from near edge on-premises environments to the far edges of Earth and space to monetize investments, modernize networks, elevate customer experiences and streamline business operations with AI.

Our aim is to be the most trusted co-innovation partner for the telecommunications industry. We want to help accelerate telco transformation and empower operators to succeed in the era of AI, which is why we are committed to working with operators, enterprises and developers on the future cloud.

At MWC in Barcelona this week, we are announcing updates to our Azure for Operators portfolio to help operators seize the opportunity ahead in a cloud- and AI-native future.

Monetize investments and unlock innovation for customers

AI opens new growth opportunities for operators. The biggest potential is that operators, as they embrace this new era of cloud and AI, can also help their customers in their own transformation.

For example, spam calls and malicious activities are a well-known menace and are growing exponentially, and often impact the most vulnerable members of society. Besides the annoyance, the direct cost of those calls adds up. For example, in the United States, FTC data for 2023 shows $850 million in reported fraud losses stemming from scam calls.

Today, we are announcing the public preview of Azure Operator Call Protection, a new service that uses AI to help protect consumers from scam calls. The service uses real-time analysis of voice content, alerting consumers who opt into the service when there is suspicious in-call activity. Azure Operator Call Protection works on any endpoint, mobile or landline, and it works entirely through the network without needing any app installation.

In the U.K., BT Group is trialing Azure Operator Call Protection to identify, educate and protect their customers from potential fraud, making it harder for bad actors to take advantage of their customers.

We are also announcing the public preview of Azure Programmable Connectivity (APC), which provides a unified, standard interface across operators’ networks. APC provides seamless access to Open Gateway for developers to create cloud and edge-native applications that interact with the intelligence of the network. APC also empowers operators to commercialize their network APIs and simplifies their access for developers and is available in the Azure Marketplace.

Run AI-driven networks on a carrier-grade, hybrid cloud platform

AI opens incredible opportunities to modernize network operations, providing new levels of real-time insights, intelligence and automation. Operators, such as Three UK, are already using Azure Operator Insights to eliminate data silos and deliver actionable business insights by enabling the collection and analysis of massive quantities of network data gathered from complex multi-vendor network functions. Designed for operator-specific workloads, operators tackle complex scenarios with Azure Operator Insights, such as understanding the health of their networks and the quality of their subscribers’ experiences.

Azure Operator Insights uses a modern data mesh architecture for dividing complex domains into manageable sub-domains called data products. These data products integrate large datasets from different sources and vendors to provide data visibility from disaggregated networks for comprehensive analytical and business insights. Using this data product factory capability, operators, network equipment providers and solution integrators can create unique data products for one customer or published to the Azure Marketplace for many customers to use.

Today, we are also announcing the limited preview of Copilot in Azure Operator Insights, a groundbreaking, operator-focused, generative AI capability helping operators move from reactive to proactive and predictive in tangible ways. Engineers use the Copilot to interact with network insights using natural language and receive simple explanations of what the data means and possible actions to take, resolving network issues quickly and accurately, ultimately improving customer satisfaction.

Copilot in Azure Operator Insights is delivering AI-infused insights to drive network efficiency for customers like Three UK and participating partners including Amdocs, Accenture and BMC Remedy. Three UK is using Copilot in Azure Operator Insights to unlock actionable intelligence on network health and customer experience quality of service, a process that previously took weeks or months to assess, is now possible to perform in minutes.

Additionally, with our next-generation hybrid cloud platform, Azure Operator Nexus, we offer the ability to future-proof the network to support mission-critical workloads, and power new revenue-generating services and applications. This immense opportunity is what drives operators to modernize their networks with Azure Operator Nexus, a carrier-grade, hybrid cloud platform and AI-powered automation and insights — unlocking improved efficiency, scalability and reliability. Purpose-built for and validated by tier one operators to run mission-critical workloads, Azure Operator Nexus enables operators to run workloads on-premises or on Azure, where they can seamlessly deploy, manage, secure and monitor everything — from the bare metal to the tenant.

E& UAE is taking advantage of the Azure Operator Nexus platform to lower total cost of ownership (TCO), leverage the power of AI to simplify operations, improve time to market and focus on their core competencies.  And operations at AT&T that took months with previous generations of technology now take weeks to complete with Azure Operator Nexus.

We continue to build robust capabilities into Azure Operator Nexus, including new deployment options giving operators the flexibility to use one carrier-grade platform to deliver innovative solutions on near-edge, far-edge and enterprise edge.

Read more about the latest Azure for Operator updates here.

Accelerate business transformation with AI

Operators are creating differentiation by collaborating with us to improve customer experiences and streamline their business operations with AI. Operators are leveraging Microsoft’s copilot stack and copilot experiences across our core products and services, such as Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Copilot for M365 and Microsoft Security Copilot to drive productivity and improve customer experiences.

• Last year AT&T launched Ask AT&T, a generative AI tool designed to help employees be more effective, creative and innovative. An early use case for Ask AT&T was to enable software developers to write and refine code — in many cases, AT&T is seeing a 25-50% productivity gain for their developers. Since its launch, the company has identified many other use cases for the solution. Today, approximately 68,000 employees have access to Ask AT&T and are using it for anything from vulnerability remediation in IT to analysis of the vast data flows the company manages on its network. The company is currently training Ask AT&T on contracts and financial materials to assist with HR questions and making our care representatives even more effective at supporting our customers.
• Teams at Lumen use Copilot to surface relevant policies, summarize tickets and easily find repair instructions from manuals. They can quickly create presentations, new business proposals and statements of work. Giving their workforce the digital tools they need to deliver dramatically improved customer experiences with greater ease is an essential part of the company’s transformation.
• Telefónica evolves Kernel, its digital framework for the creation of advanced services, to the next level by adding new Microsoft Azure AI services to power every relevant use case with generative AI capabilities at scale. New Kernel 2.0 integrates all the digital services from the Telefónica Group to enable private-first, secure and standardized access to data and APIs, providing a foundation for value-added services that can be developed faster and with higher customer impact.
• Indonesian-based Telkomsel introduced Veronika — a virtual assistant that integrates Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. Veronika is rooted in natural language processing and machine learning, and recommends telco packages based on customers’ needs, and it can quickly and accurately address customer concerns. Since deploying Veronika, Telkomsel has been able to address rising call volumes without increasing agents. They have seen a significant drop in call volumes for their agents who are now handling 1,000 calls a day (down from 8,000 previously) and can now focus on increased cross-selling.
• To increase customer satisfaction, Vodafone will apply the power of Microsoft Azure OpenAI to deliver frictionless, real-time, proactive and hyper-personalized experiences across all Vodafone customer touchpoints, including its digital assistant TOBi (available in 13 countries). Vodafone employees will also be able to leverage the AI capabilities of Microsoft Copilot to transform working practices, boost productivity and improve digital efficiency.

An average operator spends 20% of annual revenue on capital expenditures. However, this investment does not translate into an equivalent increase in revenue growth. Operators need to empower their service teams with data-driven insights to increase productivity, enhance care, use conversational AI to enable self-service, expedite issue resolution and deliver frictionless customer experiences at scale.

Partnering with Microsoft in the era of AI

Together with our partner ecosystem, we are investing in creating a comprehensive set of solutions for the telecommunications industry. This includes the Azure for Operators portfolio — a carrier-grade hybrid cloud platform, voice core, mobile core and multi-access edge compute, as well as our suite of generative AI solutions that holistically address the needs of network operators as they transform their networks.

As customers continue to embrace generative AI, we remain committed to working with operators and enterprises alike to future-proof networks and unlock new revenue streams in a cloud- and AI-native future.

The post Accelerating telco transformation in the era of AI appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

As global sustainability progress becomes more pressing, organizations need tangible, transformative solutions to help them move forward faster. Most have not progressed as much as they’d like. While 85% of executives report that sustainability is strategically important to their company, only 16% have integrated sustainability into their business strategies.

Today, we’re introducing new data and AI solutions in Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability that provide capabilities organizations need to progress in their sustainability journey. These include faster environmental, social and governance (ESG) data analytics and insights, an AI assistant to help accelerate impactful decision-making and reporting, and other advanced capabilities — all designed to help organizations move the needle faster.

Microsoft Fabric: A single analytics platform for sustainability data

In May 2023, we unveiled Microsoft Fabric, an end-to-end, analytics SaaS platform that brings together all of an organization’s enterprise data, including ESG data that the company may not have had access to before. With Microsoft Fabric, your teams can connect to data from anywhere, uncover insights using AI-powered analytics tools in a unified experience, and embed those insights in the applications your people use every day to drive action and improve decision-making.

Now in preview, sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric allows organizations to accelerate their time to insights and sustainability progress by providing out-of-the-box ESG data model, connectors and reporting. By connecting your ESG data with Microsoft Fabric you can turn volumes of sustainability data into meaningful insights and progress.

Copilot and intelligent insights: AI assistance for better, faster decisions 

With centrally managed data and Copilot in Microsoft Sustainability Manager, now in preview, organizations can use powerful generative AI and natural language queries to gain faster lines of sight into and answers out of data. Organizations can ask Copilot questions, and Copilot will work across Microsoft Sustainability Manager to:

• Quickly analyze environmental data and surface reduction opportunities in areas like carbon and water use, saving work and time.
• Talk to sustainability data — ask questions and retrieve answers quickly.
• Draft sustainability preparatory reports, reducing time and freeing up resources to focus on other priorities.

With intelligent insights in Microsoft Sustainability Manager, also in preview, organizations get an integrated and interactive AI model enabling deeper analysis of calculated emissions data. Using it, they can:

• See where their data needs cleaning or where more complete data is needed.
• Scan the organization’s data to identify both short- and long-term reduction opportunities.
• Fine-tune decisions based on historical trends, seasonality and data anomalies.

Södra, Sweden’s largest forest-owner association with 52,000 owners of responsibly managed forests, processes sustainable raw materials from members’ forests into renewable products. Using Microsoft Sustainability Manager with new AI capabilities, Södra has improved sustainability practices like reporting through automated flows that enable employees to more easily collect detailed information.

“With the AI capabilities in Microsoft Sustainability Manager, we can be more productive, which is our ultimate goal,” shares Cristian Brolin, Chief Digital Officer at Södra. “We found the Copilot feature very easy to use and my vision and ambition is that this will help accelerate the way we work. We are excited to see how this solution helps accelerate our sustainability progress.”

ESG value chain solution: Working with suppliers to drive reductions

For most organizations, supplier activities can account for upward of 80-90% of their emissions footprint. Getting a handle on this data is critical to meeting reduction targets and reporting requirements.

ESG value chain solution in Microsoft Sustainability Manager, now generally available, allows organizations to simplify data collection and provides a seamless and more secure process for suppliers. Organizations can run advanced analytics on ESG value chain data in one place and find emissions reduction opportunities within their value chain.

At Microsoft, our procurement team has found that getting data out of siloed reports, spreadsheets, and systems into one data estate and sharing learnings with others is key to advancing our own progress as well as others’ progress. Through more automated data gathering and management, such as through ESG value chain solution, we can not only more easily share data but also respond more nimbly to changing regulatory requirements.

Driving sustainable business toward new growth opportunities 

According to research by the United Nations and Accenture, 98% of CEOs see sustainability as a core to their role, and two out of three are forming partnerships and taking action on sustainability. Many are also translating these actions into new business models and growth.

Allegiant Stadium, home to the Las Vegas Raiders, is using Microsoft Sustainability Manager to support a state-of-the art and energy efficient facility that hosted the 2024 Super Bowl. Allegiant obtained LEED Gold certification, is 100% powered by renewable energy from local solar farms and is using Microsoft solutions to help organize data to inform decisions about resource utilization.

Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability is designed to be extensible by partners, including experts operating at the intersections of sustainability and AI. For example, Avanade’s copilot for ESG takes the friction out of regulatory compliance reporting, generating audit-ready reports against new and existing ESG frameworks.

We are proud to have a growing, global ecosystem of sustainability solution, advisory and implementation partners working closely with us, to build and deploy capabilities that can address the broad, multifaceted and complex challenges in sustainability.

At the intersection of sustainability and AI, the possibilities are vast for any organization to refocus business around transforming operations, reinventing brands and exploring new business opportunities. Microsoft AI delivers on this potential and the needs of our customers with a responsible approach to AI that’s based on robust evaluation, verification and validation.

Using the power of data and AI, sustainability progress isn’t just possible but tangible. Organizations can gain efficiency and accuracy in decision-making and reporting as well as new ways of doing and growing business — on an exciting, shared path to a transformative future.

The post New data and AI solutions in Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability help move organizations from pledges to progress  appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog