This past quarter has put a spotlight on advancements in generative AI, and the possibilities of its application to deliver pragmatic business outcomes. For organizations around the world, there is incredible opportunity to enhance products and services while unlocking innovation and business value to help shape the future of industry. The pace and scale of technological innovation happening today is unprecedented and breathes optimism into a demanding economy. Those leveraging the Microsoft Cloud — the most trusted, comprehensive and integrated cloud — are best positioned to take advantage of these advancements. As leaders look to embrace AI, it becomes more critical than ever to prioritize having a data-driven business, fortified with digital and cloud capabilities. This approach will help organizations leverage generative AI as an accelerant to transformation. From Rogers improving connectivity for Canadians through automation and AI to the Ministry of Education in the United Arab Emirates developing an AI tutor for students, the possibilities are both limitless and part of today’s realities.
Modernizing manufacturing operations in the cloud to boost efficiency, lower costs and increase security
Mercedes-Benz is leveraging conversational AI capabilities within Azure OpenAI Service to deliver best-in-class customer service with Mercedes Virtual Assistant, while Austrian construction company Strabag is building a risk management solution that improves operational efficiency to save time and reduce financial losses. Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company is continuing to scale its finance and supply chain operations on Azure while lowering enterprise applications costs. Australian-based Graintech estimates a 68% reduction in carbon emissions and reduced travel spending by using HoloLens and Teams to enable remote work and collaboration. FUJIFILM built its Cash Application service using Azure AI and Dynamics 365 to automate 20% of its manual invoicing processes. MAPEI is better engaging its customers with self-service tools while saving costs by consolidating its sales, customer service and marketing systems in the cloud. Belgian manufacturer Picanol Group is promoting tighter integrations between IT and operations by managing and securing its entire IT environment on the Microsoft Cloud. U.K.-based Kier Group is lowering infrastructure costs by consolidating its on-premises environment and migrating 90% of its server workloads to Azure. Krones is improving productivity and security for employees while protecting its globally distributed endpoints and over 6,400 patents by upgrading to Windows 11 Enterprise. Seeing an opportunity to embrace AI and IoT technology to mitigate supply chain disruptions, Liebherr-Components co-developed a turnkey security solution with Reycom AG using Defender for IoT.
Transforming retail experiences for consumers with AI and data-driven insights
To accelerate product launches and enhance customer service, Unilever has adopted Azure as its primary cloud platform and become a cloud-only enterprise by partnering with Accenture and Microsoft in one of the largest cloud migrations in the consumer goods industry. Campari Group is leveraging Dynamics 365 Copilot capabilities to increase the impact of its marketing campaigns by creating more personalized content and deeper customer insights. To launch the largest autonomous store chain in Europe, Żabka is creating frictionless customer journeys using AI-powered real-time computer vision technology from AiFi and Microsoft Cloud for Retail for store analytics and insights. Retailers like Canadian Tire and IFCO are leveraging Power BI to better understand product performance and develop detailed forecasts for customers. Sakata is automating price updates to reduce cumbersome manual processes, resulting in times savings of more than 60%. In Ukraine, retail technology company IPLAND is applying automated machine learning to increase image recognition speed and data collection for consumer goods companies looking to optimize their in-store product displays. Northern Tool + Equipment is providing intelligent customer experiences that guarantee faster and more reliable delivery times by working with real-time data within Microsoft Supply Chain Center.
Reinventing financial services through cloud capabilities and co-innovation
To democratize access to financial services in Mexico, Finvero is utilizing cloud and AI solutions to provide simpler, friendlier and more agile experiences for users. Leveraging support from the Microsoft for Startups program, Australia-based Thriday is freeing up time for small business owners by simplifying administrative tasks and improving financial management solutions using AI and machine learning. At its Hack Day event, AustralianSuper co-created a solution with Microsoft to reduce its manual effort for onboarding advisers by 90% in just two weeks. India’s largest private-sector bank, HDFC Bank, is using the Microsoft Cloud to securely modernize its data landscape to scale information management and data analytics. In Israel, global solutions provider Sapiens has cut its time to market in half — reducing operational overhead by at least 40% — by automating its development life cycle and delivery processes with Azure. In Brazil, ClearSale is combining advanced AI and human intelligence to ensure e-commerce purchases aren’t being made by scammers or hackers, and Cielo is making it easier to securely optimize access time for new suppliers — reducing the onboarding time needed from 60 days to two hours or less.
Advancing sustainability progress across transportation and energy industries with data and automation
To help organizations reduce water consumption and identify greenhouse gas emission savings, Ecolab has expanded its partnership with Microsoft, combining its digital platform capabilities with the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability. Serving more than 1.4 million passengers in the U.K., public transportation provider FirstGroup is supporting its sustainability goals and making it easier to collaborate and solve problems by centralizing the visibility and management of its hybrid and multicloud environments with Azure Arc. In Germany, rail transportation leader Deutsche Bahn is building upon its commitment to a cleaner transportation infrastructure for the country by using Dynamics 365 to organize, analyze and visualize its data with the help of partner proMX. Greece-based company Public Power Corporation cut carbon emissions by over 99% while reducing its total cost of ownership by 30% by integrating its data sources on Azure. To enhance productivity for workers across the world, Norway-based Aker Solutions moved its global data center to the cloud and realized an estimated 40% reduction in CO2 emissions. To meet growing customer needs, German energy company EnBW automated its operations to make it possible to manage 10,000 renewable energy plants with only 20 employees.
Empowering professional services companies with cutting edge data and generative AI solutions
To achieve its mission of saving 1 million lives every year by 2030, Laerdal Medical is integrating is integrating Azure Speech Services into its training programs to create more immersive, real-life simulations between patients and providers. Amdocs is empowering service providers to improve end-user experiences across all channels and applications with its Customer Engagement Platform that combines best-in-class cloud, AI and telco technologies. ZS Associates is accelerating its new project launches by 75% through better access to collaboration and data tools using Azure and Microsoft 365. In Australia, KPMG is giving employees access to a proprietary version of ChatGPT within Teams so employees can safely explore and use the technology to drive innovation, boost efficiencies and improve the people experience. EY has developed a generative AI chatbot to modernize payroll employee care that can answer complex questions. Hungary-based digital solutions provider BPiON is deploying and maintaining applications almost 10 times faster — allowing the cloud-native company to expand its operational infrastructure to two new countries in less than a day.
I believe the only way to navigate uncertainty is through continued and accelerated innovation, and Microsoft itself is no exception. We have been delivering AI solutions for customers successfully over the last several years using cognitive services, machine learning and digital twins. Moving forward, we will infuse generative AI capability into our consumer and commercial offerings to deliver copilot capability for all services that our customers know and love across the Microsoft Cloud. Additionally, we will work with our partners, start-ups, digital natives and our customers to enable them to leverage these same capabilities in their own solutions. I am excited to see what our customers will create with generative AI in partnership with us. Together, we can apply the world’s most advanced AI models to meet business imperatives responsibly, securely and with the confidence that can only be achieved with the Microsoft Cloud.