Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, shared the following remarks at Microsoft’s 50th anniversary today.

It’s so wonderful to be here with all of you celebrating 50 years of Microsoft. And it’s especially exciting to be doing it at a time like this. For me, though, it starts with Bill [Gates] and Steve [Ballmer], who are both here with us today. I want to say a very big thank you to the two of you, and to Paul [Allen], and what you’ve meant to me personally and your vision that you had building this extraordinary company of ours that I’ve had the privilege to be part of. Thank you for your vision, your leadership, your passion, and for building the Microsoft that we know today. A company that has truly changed the world.

Fifty years ago, Bill and Paul started Microsoft with a simple but powerful idea: to build technology so people everywhere could build more technology. The very first product Microsoft built was the Basic interpreter for the Altair, giving people the power to create software, jumpstarting the PC revolution, and creating an entirely new sector for our economy.

But today, it’s not just about the past 50 years, it’s about the next 50. If there’s one thing that I have learned during my time at Microsoft, it’s not about longevity, but relevance. Our future will not be defined by what we have built, but what we empower others to build.

This is why we are leading this new wave of AI innovation and more importantly, democratizing it, just like we did with the PC. From there we’ve gone to chat, to multi file edits, and now to agents. More than 150 million developers in nearly every country around the world are using GitHub.

So, I thought to myself, what if I could take that power and rebuild Microsoft’s very first product? And so, I tried it.

You really know you’re on to something. Intelligence has been commoditized when CEOs can start vibe coding. But in all seriousness, this is not just a cool party trick, It’s transformational. It’s empowering. It’s unleashing human ambition. And it’s happening now.

In fact, I’m excited to share that the capability I just showed with Agent Mode is rolling out to all Visual Studio Code users starting today. We now have autonomous AI agents or peer programmers who can collaborate with us to anticipate our needs and help us think more creatively, and it does not stop there. We are bringing full MCP support to Agent Mode; we’re also launching Code Review Agent today to fix and find bugs automatically; we’re also making it easier than ever before for developers to build their own agents in Azure AI Foundry.

Think of it like an agent factory. It’s a production line for intelligence. Tens and thousands of organizations are using Foundry to build their own agents. And today, we’re going further. We now have a new agent framework for building multi-agent systems. But building agents is just the very beginning. We’re also building tools for all the evals, fine tuning, observability, and feedback. And you’ll also have a red teaming agent and tools to measure code vulnerabilities. All of this in support of building trustworthy AI systems. There’s much, much more to come.

What started out as a developer tools company 50 years ago is now a platform company where everyone can be a developer. Our mission has not changed, it’s only expanded.

Just as we have done always, we are putting the power in people’s hands so that they can build software that moves their communities, their countries forward. The same ethos is driving Copilot, not just for developers, but for every aspect of working life. Helping people do things that allow them to do more things, whether it’s building apps, doing homework, shopping, planning, and so much more.

Ultimately, it all comes down to our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. I’ve always thought of Microsoft as a platform and partner-first company, and this has only been possible because of our customers, our partners and developers, and our 1.6 million employees, past and present, who have connected their passion with our purpose to get us where we are today. And it’s you who will continue to build this company to have impact around the world well into the future.

So, from the bottom of my heart, a big thank you to everyone who has contributed to Microsoft in getting us to this moment. I can’t wait to see what is next with Copilot and everything that we have for you.

Remarks have been edited for clarity.

Photo: Bill Gates, Microsoft Co-founder and Gates Foundation Chair; Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO and Ballmer Group Co-founder; and Satya Nadella, Microsoft Chairman and CEO, on stage at the anniversary event. (Photo by Dan DeLong)

The post Celebrating Microsoft’s 50 years appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, shared the following remarks at Microsoft’s 50th anniversary today. It’s so wonderful to be here with all of you celebrating 50 years of Microsoft. And it’s especially exciting to be doing it at a time like this. For me, though, it starts with Bill [Gates] and Steve [Ballmer], who are…
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As we celebrate Microsoft’s 50th anniversary, our annual State of the Partner Ecosystem moment is a great opportunity to reflect on the incredible journey we’ve shared with our partners, employees and customers. Together, we’ve harnessed technology as a force for good, transforming industries and communities. From our early days of revolutionizing personal computing to leading the way in cloud innovation and now AI, our shared milestones highlight the power of collaboration and reinvention.

Fifty years ago, Microsoft started with a bold idea: the belief that technology could change the world. Thanks to the largest partner ecosystem in the industry, numbering 500,000 and growing, that vision became a reality, and I know we are just getting started. From the early days of distributing Windows PCs and Office to now delivering AI transformation strategies that solve the most complex customer challenges, our ability to stay at the forefront of innovation as technology evolves is a testament to our culture of continuous reinvention.

According to IDC, for every $1 of Microsoft revenue, services partners earn $8.45, and software partners earn $10.93. This underscores the immense opportunity available to partners of all types. As we look ahead to the future, we know that generative AI (GenAI) is forecast to grow exponentially faster than the overall IT market. Partners generating at least 25% of their Microsoft-related revenue from AI can expect higher margins and revenue growth, unlocking even more potential for transformation and success.*

Microsoft has always been a partner-led company. Our partners are core to our heritage and our future. Their innovation and collaboration have driven real transformation and customer success and will continue to shape the future of industries around the world. As we commemorate this historic moment, I want to take the opportunity to say Thank You to our partners for being on this incredible journey with us.

Here are just a few ways you can join us to celebrate this milestone:

• Watch this video from Judson Althoff, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, Microsoft.
• Join the Microsoft AI Skills Fest for 50 days of learning and discovery starting April 8! Gain skills that will empower you and your team to build innovative AI solutions with Microsoft’s apps and services.

“For decades, Intel’s partnership with Microsoft has sparked innovation and delivered value to our customers. Together, we’ve revolutionized industries and established new benchmarks for excellence. We look forward to collaborating for the next 50 years — and beyond.”

— Jim Johnson, Senior Vice President, Client Computing Group, Intel

Preparing for the future with the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program (MAICPP)

Microsoft succeeds when our partners succeed. MAICPP has evolved to enable partners worldwide to deliver customer outcomes across every industry, from small businesses to the largest enterprises. Our program is designed to provide our partners with the most relevant tools and resources they need to thrive in a rapidly changing market, and it serves as the home for all partner types.

“As a proud Microsoft alum, I’ve seen firsthand how our collaboration has evolved to drive meaningful change for businesses across industries. From strategy through engineering and implementation, PwC and Microsoft drive innovation and deliver real business outcomes for clients worldwide.”

— Stephanie Mosticchio, Principal, US and Global Microsoft Alliance Leader, PwC

Through MAICPP, all partners can access updated benefits packages designed to accelerate growth and meet specific business needs. Software development companies are encouraged to explore ISV Success, a pathway offering additional benefits to expand development capabilities and shorten time to market. Whether building, publishing or growing sales, partners can leverage targeted offers to get the support they need.

“As someone who has led global partnerships at several of the world’s leading technology companies, I am impressed by how Microsoft has leaned in with their partner ecosystem and taken a leadership position in cloud computing and AI. We, at Snowflake, are excited to continue to strengthen our partnership in the years to come, and we look forward to jointly driving customer success in the age of enterprise AI. Congratulations!

— Tyler Prince, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Alliances & Channels, Snowflake

Depending on business goals, partners may pursue a Solutions Partner designation or specialization, both of which provide tailored benefits to help differentiate their business in a competitive market. Achieving a designation unlocks valuable go-to-market resources, sales support, new incentives and product benefits to help expand customer reach, sharpen skills and drive growth. For software development companies, becoming a Solutions Partner** with certified software*** further enhances market presence by validating software capabilities in high-demand areas.

“Having worked alongside every CEO of Microsoft in my career, I would like to personally congratulate Microsoft for its 50 extraordinary years of driving relentless innovation.”

“Lenovo is proud to be a major part of this amazing journey with Microsoft and we are committed to this partnership for many more decades to come.”

— Yuanqing Yang, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Lenovo

For partners holding an Azure designation or Azure specialization, additional incentives are available through Azure Migrate and Modernize and Azure Innovate — both underpinned by Azure Essentials. With comprehensive resources, extensive coverage across scenarios and tailored incentives in one easy-to-navigate hub, Azure partners can better support customers from migration to innovation. Learn more in What’s new for Azure partner-led offerings: ISV Success and specialization updates.

Our program offers benefits for partners aligned to their growth stage and across all customer segments. We have recently made the process of obtaining an Azure Solutions Partner designation more aligned to our partners who specialize in working with small and midsize customers. We are also expanding access to Azure Migrate and Modernize and Azure Innovate incentives for SMB pathways. Read more about the SMB path to Azure Solutions Partner designations.

Cloud Solution Provider is our partner hero motion for small and medium enterprises

In November at Microsoft Ignite, we highlighted the $661 billion total addressable market (TAM) opportunity for SME&C customers in FY25 and beyond. Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners are the trusted advisors who serve these customers and accelerate their AI transformation with the value-added services and solutions that create real business impact. CSP is our hero motion that enables those partners to drive this business transformation.

“Our Microsoft partnership has evolved to meet the needs of our business and our partners. Together we’ve been able to support our partners to deliver true solution and value selling, leveraging the robust resources available through Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program and benefitting from the rich incentives. It has enabled us to drive innovation and deliver exceptional experiences for our partners through our ArrowSphere platform and broader enablement programs to ensure they’re empowered to deliver real customer outcomes. Together, we’re enabling the channel to deliver solutions that deliver real impact for customers around the world.”

— Brendan Murphy, Global Director, Public Cloud, Arrow Electronics

We strive to provide CSP partners with the skilling, capabilities and investments to make this opportunity a reality. So far in FY25, we have:

• focused our incentives to clearly align to our five strategic priorities — Copilot on every device across every role, AI design wins with every customer, securing the cyber foundation of every customer, a focus on migrations and Microsoft 365 execution
• dedicated 70% of our total incentive spend to partners that serve the Small and Medium Enterprise and Customer (SME&C) segment
• introduced a series of new promos, including a new-to-Microsoft 365 E5 offer to enable CSP partners to win new customers

Expanding our portfolio of CSP offers and capabilities is an ongoing priority. We share updates as they become available.

Capturing the marketplace opportunity

As customers increasingly centralize their solution procurement, marketplaces have become the preferred buying platform. For software companies, adopting cloud marketplaces accelerates deal closure and increases deal sizes. Serving as a global B2B commerce engine, our marketplace empowers Microsoft partners to provide solutions to customers worldwide. It offers various sales models: digital direct, through partners or with Microsoft — providing flexibility to align with how customers want to buy and how partners want to sell. Learn more in this recent blog.

Unlocking success through skilling and events

The speed of technology innovation requires continuous learning. To support this, we offer our partners a variety of skilling opportunities, such as our popular in-person Microsoft AI Partner Training Days, designed to help partners develop both technical and sales capabilities.

We are also streamlining and simplifying our skilling portals through initiatives like Microsoft Sales Titan (currently in private preview for CSP Accelerate partners and available for all partners in summer 2025), a program tailored to equip sales professionals with in-depth knowledge of Microsoft Threat Protection SKUs, empowering them to position themselves as industry leaders. Discover these and other skilling opportunities.

Looking ahead, we invite our partners to join us at Microsoft Build, taking place May 19–22, 2025. This flagship event offers an exclusive opportunity to explore the latest advancements in AI, learn how to work smarter and elevate your projects. Connect with peers, industry experts and Microsoft leadership while diving into the code and innovations that will shape the future.

“Schneider Electric and Microsoft have been driven by a shared vision of a world that is more electric and digital. We’re thrilled to celebrate Microsoft’s 50th anniversary and excited to continue pioneering innovative solutions together, harnessing the transformative power of AI, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible for our customers and shaping a sustainable future for generations to come.”

— Frédéric Godemel, Executive Vice President, Energy Management, Schneider Electric

Looking forward – the next 50 years

As we celebrate this remarkable milestone, we remain focused on and optimistic for the future. We continue to innovate, collaborate and empower our partners to thrive in the era of AI and beyond. The past 50 years have been defined by shared success, and this will continue for our future. Together, we will unlock new opportunities, drive transformation and shape the future of technology.

Throughout this journey, stories of innovation have inspired us. A few examples of how partners are celebrating our 50th anniversary are included in this blog. See the full list of partner quotes on the Microsoft 50^th Anniversary celebration site.

Thank you for being an integral part of our story. We can’t wait to see what we’ll accomplish together next!

*IDC: Microsoft Partners: Driving Economic Value and AI Maturity

 **“Solutions Partner” refers to a company that is a member of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program and may offer software, services, and/or solutions to customers. Reference to “Solutions Partner” in any content, materials, resources, web properties, etc. and any associated designation should be not interpreted as an offer, endorsement, guarantee, proof of effectiveness or functionality, a commitment or any other type of representation or warranty on the part of Microsoft. All decisions pertaining to and related to your business needs including but not limited to strategies, solutions, partner selection, implementation, etc. rest solely with your business. 

 ***A certification is (A) specific to the solution’s interoperability with Microsoft products and (B) based on self-attestation by the solution owner. Solutions are only certified as of the date the solution is reviewed. Solution functionality and capability are controlled by the solution owner and may be subject to change. The inclusion of a solution in marketplace and any such designations should not be interpreted as an offer, endorsement, guarantee, proof of effectiveness or functionality, a commitment or any other type of representation or warranty on the part of Microsoft. All decisions pertaining and related to your business needs including but not limited to strategies, solutions, partner selection, implementation, etc. rest solely with your business.

The post Microsoft at 50: The journey and future of the partner ecosystem appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

As we celebrate Microsoft’s 50th anniversary, our annual State of the Partner Ecosystem moment is a great opportunity to reflect on the incredible journey we’ve shared with our partners, employees and customers. Together, we’ve harnessed technology as a force for good, transforming industries and communities. From our early days of revolutionizing personal computing to leading…
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Today, we hosted the 15th annual Microsoft Ability Summit, with over 20,000 attendees from 164 countries coming together virtually to discuss the future of AI and accessibility. Microsoft has a long-standing commitment to investing in accessibility, grounded in our business model and going back over three decades from the earliest accessibility features in Windows 95 and continuing today with new hardware and software functionalities powered by AI. We are innovating faster than ever before and people with disabilities continue to lead the way.

Accessibility is a fundamental right for people with disabilities and makes technology easier for everyone. We see this reflected in how customers are using Microsoft technologies around the world. Copilot for Microsoft 365 is unlocking workplace productivity like never before, more than 10 million people use Edge each month to have the web Read Aloud, over 1 million people use Immersive Reader to make webpages easier to read and partners like Tobii Dynavox and Special Olympics are bringing AI to people with disabilities globally. And these are just some of the highlights of what we shared today!

Here’s a quick summary of the new accessibility products, features and programs announced at the 2025 Ability Summit.

What’s new in 2025?

We announced that the Xbox Adaptive Joystick is now available for purchase exclusively at Microsoft Store. With more than 429 million players with disabilities worldwide, we know each player has unique needs and preferences for how they choose to play. The Xbox Adaptive Joystick is a singular, wired controller primarily designed to meet the needs of players with limited mobility. Its versatility helps players seamlessly incorporate it into their existing gaming setups. Built with the Gaming and Disability community who inform the development of Xbox products from the beginning. The joystick joins our family of adaptive accessories including the mouse, pen, adaptive kit and Xbox Adaptive Controller. For more details visit Xbox Support.

And all our Microsoft hardware comes in packaging designed to be accessible and sustainable. No more plastic clamshells! To help others with accessible packaging, today at the Summit, the Packaging and Content Team at Microsoft published its Accessible Packaging Design Guide, which offers practical guidelines, best practices and strategies to create accessible packaging and foster a trusted customer experience.

At the Summit, Microsoft teams and partners also shared ways they are working to further advance accessibility through technology:

• Tobii Dynavox is integrating Microsoft Neural Voice, a capability of Azure AI Speech, into their assistive communication solutions. This AI-powered feature gives more personal options for individuals who use assistive communication devices using eye gaze. Neural Voices are available in over 50 languages within their apps TD Talk and TD Phone.
• Microsoft Teams will improve for those using Sign Language View. Later this year, Teams will be able to identify when someone is using sign language and feature them prominently as a speaker in the meeting. These video customizations are part of our ongoing product development to help deliver clear and accessible communication for everyone.
• Copilot is powering neurodiverse talent. Recently, an EY study found that Copilot helped 76% of neurodiverse employees perform better at work by enhancing communication, memory recall and focus. At the Summit, we shared how new simple features like Team Reflow and PowerPoint Designer are helping people do their work. See four early adopters of Copilot in New York share their stories.

• AI comes to Narrator. Rich image descriptions powered by AI will be coming to Narrator in Windows Insider Preview this spring and Azure AI Foundry announced new UI improvements to reduce cognitive load.
• Over 5 million learners around the world have participated in our Accessibility Skilling program and we’re grateful to our partners including Teach Access, Computacenter UK and the City of New York. The free, virtual training includes the latest on AI and is available for organizations to use in their learning management systems.
• Speech recognition improved up to 60%. The Speech Accessibility Project, led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, unlocked a breakthrough improving accuracy gains for non-standard speech, and the Azure platform team demonstrated how developers can leverage GitHub Copilot to write accessible code.
• Special Olympics shared how Copilot has been a game-changing training companion for their coaches and athletes with intellectual and development disabilities for the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Turin, Italy.

All this progress is possible because of the people who design technology with accessibility in mind. In this way, technology benefits everyone, creating a more productive and efficient workplace. It is beautiful to see that reflected in this profile of Dave Dame, Senior Director of Accessibility and Human Factors at Microsoft, where he shared how accessible technology helps him thrive as a leader.

Onward

For over 30 years, Microsoft has focused on accessibility in our products. Accessibility makes our tools and technologies easier for everyone and accelerates innovation for the world. From the introduction of Sticky Keys and speech recognition in Windows 95 to Seeing AI in 2016 and beyond, accessibility innovations have benefited people in ways we designed for and ways we could have never expected. Just think about how closed captions are now invaluable for everyone watching videos and calls.

AI has the potential to create significant advancements across every sector of our economy and society. We will continue to be grounded and responsible in our approach as we work to get the latest technology to the people who can benefit from it the most.

Whether this is your first or fifteenth Ability Summit, thank you for joining and we hope you picked up a new feature, skill or nugget that helps you, your community or your organization get the most out of technology. All content will be available to watch after the event.

Let’s move forward together.

The post Microsoft Ability Summit 2025: Accessibility in the AI era appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Today, we hosted the 15th annual Microsoft Ability Summit, with over 20,000 attendees from 164 countries coming together virtually to discuss the future of AI and accessibility. Microsoft has a long-standing commitment to investing in accessibility, grounded in our business model and going back over three decades from the earliest accessibility features in Windows 95…
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Today Microsoft released Muse, a first-of-its-kind generative AI model that we are applying to gaming. But it’s so much more than that. What we’re sharing today is a huge step forward for gameplay ideation. And what’s even more exciting is what this breakthrough represents in our journey of building and using generative AI, and what industries, developers and creators of all interests will be enabled to do next.

The impressive abilities we first witnessed with ChatGPT and GPT-4 to learn human language are now being matched by AI’s abilities to learn the mechanics of how things work, in effect developing a practical understanding of interactions in the world. As a computer scientist, this ability to understand and model a 3D world is something I and many other great researchers have pursued for over 10 years and, personally, I was not sure that it could be made possible with such speed and quality.

In the case of Muse, just from observing human gameplay, this model develops a deep understanding of the environment, including its dynamics and how it evolves over time in response to actions. This unlocks the ability to rapidly iterate, remix and create in video games so developers can eventually create immersive environments and unleash their full creativity.

Beyond gaming, I’m excited by the potential of this capability to enable AI assistants that understand and help visualize things, from reconfiguring the kitchen in your home to redesigning a retail space to building a digital twin of a factory floor to test and explore different scenarios. All these things are just now becoming possible with AI. From the perspective of computer science research, it’s pretty amazing, and the future applications of this are likely to be transformative for creators.

—

At Microsoft, we have a long history of collaboration between research and engineering. Today, as we release Muse, we are also announcing Azure AI Foundry Labs, where the AI community can explore the latest from Microsoft Research. Azure AI Foundry Labs will help accelerate the transition from research to solutions, bringing new ideas to the broader community to help shape the future of AI. Learn more.

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Today Microsoft released Muse, a first-of-its-kind generative AI model that we are applying to gaming. But it’s so much more than that. What we’re sharing today is a huge step forward for gameplay ideation. And what’s even more exciting is what this breakthrough represents in our journey of building and using generative AI, and what industries,…
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Organizational leaders in every industry around the world are evaluating ways AI can unlock opportunities, drive pragmatic innovation and yield value across their business. At Microsoft, we are dedicated to helping our customers accelerate AI Transformation by empowering human ambition with Copilots and agents, developing differentiated AI solutions and building scalable cybersecurity foundations. At Microsoft Ignite we made over 100 announcements that bring the latest innovation directly to our customers and partners, and shared how Microsoft is the only technology leader to offer three distinct AI platforms for them to build AI solutions:

1. Copilot is your UI for AI, with Copilot Studio enabling low-code creation of agents and extensibility to your data.
2. Azure AI Foundry is the only AI app server for building real-world, world-class, AI-native applications.
3. Microsoft Fabric is the AI data platform that provides one common way to reason over your data —no matter where it lives.

All three of these platforms are open and work synchronously to enable the development of modern AI solutions; and each is surrounded by our world-class security offerings so leaders can move their AI-first strategies forward with confidence.

As we look ahead to what we can achieve together, I remain inspired by the work we are doing today. Below are a handful of the many stories from the past quarter highlighting the differentiated AI solutions our customers and partners are driving to move business forward across industries and realize pragmatic value. Their success clearly illustrates that real results can be harnessed from AI today, and it is changing the way organizations do business.

To power its industrial IoT and AI platform, ABB Group leveraged Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to create Genix Copilot: a generative AI-powered analytics suite aimed at solving some of the most complex industrial problems. The solution helps customers analyze key functions in their operations —such as asset and process performance, energy optimization and emission monitoring — with real-time operational insights. As a result, customers are seeing up to 35% savings in operations and maintenance, and up to 20% improvement in energy and emission optimization. ABB also saw an 80% decrease in service calls with the self-service capabilities of Genix Copilot.

Serving government healthcare agencies across the US, Acentra Health turned to Microsoft to help introduce the latest AI capabilities that maximize talent and cut costs in a secure, HIPAA-compliant manner. Using Azure OpenAI Service, the company developed MedScribe — an AI-powered tool reducing the time specially trained nursing staff spend on appeal determination letters. This innovation saved 11,000 nursing hours and nearly $800,000, reducing time spent on each appeal determination letter by about 50%. MedScribe also significantly enhanced operational efficiency, enabling nurses to process 20 to 30 letters daily with a 99% approval rate.

To ease challenges for small farmers, Romanian agribusiness group Agricover revolutionized access to credit by developing MyAgricover. Built with help from partner Avaelgo, the scalable digital platform utilizes Microsoft Azure, Azure API Management and Microsoft Fabric to automate the loan process and enable faster approvals and disbursements. This has empowered small farmers to grow their businesses and receive faster access to financing by reducing loan approval time by 90 percent — from 10 working days to a maximum of 24 hours.

Building on its status as a world-class airline with a strong Indian identity, Air India sought ways to enhance customer support while managing costs. By developing AI.g, one of the industry’s first generative AI virtual assistants built on Azure OpenAI Service, the airline upgraded the customer experience. Today, 97% of customer queries are handled with full automation, resulting in millions of dollars of support costs saved and improved customer satisfaction — further positioning the airline for continued growth.

BMW Group aimed to enhance data delivery efficiency and improve vehicle development and prototyping cycles by implementing a Mobile Data Recorder (MDR) solution with Azure App Service, Azure AI and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). The solution achieved 10 times more efficient data delivery, significantly improved data accessibility and elevated overall development quality. The MDR monitors and records more than 10,000 signals twice per second in every vehicle of BMW’s fleet of 3,500 development cars and transmits data within seconds to a centralized cloud back end. Using Azure AI Foundry and Azure OpenAI Service, BMW Group created an MDR copilot fueled by GPT-4o. Engineers can now chat with the interface using natural language, and the MDR copilot converts the conversations into KQL queries, simplifying access to technical insights. Moving from on-premises tools to a cloud-based system with faster data management also helps engineers troubleshoot in real time. The vehicle data covered by the system has doubled, and data delivery and analysis happen 10 times faster.

Coles Group modernized its logistics and administrative applications using Microsoft Azure Stack HCI to scale its edge AI capabilities and improve efficiency and customer experience across its 1,800 stores. By expanding its Azure Stack HCI footprint from two stores to over 500, Coles achieved a six-fold increase in the pace of application deployment, significantly enhancing operational efficiency and enabling rapid innovation without disrupting workloads. The retailer is also using Azure Machine Learning to train and develop edge AI models, speeding up data annotation time for training models by 50%.

Multinational advertising and media company Dentsu wanted to speed time to insights for its team of data scientists and media analysts to support its media planning and budget optimization. Using Microsoft Azure AI Foundry and Azure OpenAI Service, Dentsu developers built a predictive analytics copilot that uses conversational chat and draws on deep expertise in media forecasting, budgeting and optimization. This AI-driven tool has reduced time to media insights for employees and clients by 90% and cut analysis costs.

To overcome the limitations of its current systems, scale operations and automate processes across millions of workflows, Docusign created the Intelligent Agreement Management (IAM) platform on Azure. Using Azure AI, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Logic Apps and AKS, the platform transforms agreement data into actionable insights to enhance productivity and accelerate contract review cycles. IAM also ensures better collaboration and unification across business systems to provide secure solutions tailored to diverse customer needs. For example, its customer KPC Private funds reported a 70% reduction in time and resources dedicated to agreement processes.

Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) transformed its manufacturing operations by leveraging a hybrid environment with Azure Arc, Azure Stack HCI and Azure Kubernetes Service. This digital manufacturing platform resulted in 86% cost savings for AI image and video analytics and a 13-fold improvement in AI response times. The seamless hybrid cloud architecture has enhanced EGA’s operational efficiency and agility, supporting its Industry 4.0 transformation strategy.

EY collaborated with Microsoft to enhance the inclusivity of AI development using Azure AI Studio. By involving neurodivergent technologists from EY’s Neuro-Diverse Centers of Excellence, they improved the accessibility and productivity of AI tools, resulting in more inclusive AI solutions, fostering innovation and ensuring that AI tools unlock the potential of all users. With an estimated 20% of the global workforce identifying as neurodivergent, inclusive AI solutions are crucial for maximizing creativity and productivity. Neurodivergent EY technologists also collaborated with Microsoft developers to make Azure AI Foundry more inclusive and help all users work productively to create innovative AI solutions.

Colombian household appliance manufacturer Haceb integrated AI to optimize processes, reduce costs and improve service quality. Using Microsoft Copilot Studio and Azure OpenAI Service, the company created a virtual technical support assistant, saving its 245 technicians 5 minutes per visit — a total of 5,000 minutes saved daily. This AI solution has enhanced efficiency and boosted customer satisfaction by allowing for faster issue resolution. Haceb’s AI adoption has also empowered employees, boosted productivity and positioned the company as a leader in AI innovation in Colombia.

To better serve its global patients, Operation Smile — in collaboration with partner Squadra — leveraged Azure AI, Machine Learning and Microsoft Fabric to develop an AI-powered solution to predict surgical outcomes and optimize resource allocation. This innovation resulted in a 30% increase in surgical efficiency, a 90% reduction in translation errors and improved patient outcomes. Additionally, report generation is now up to 95% quicker, and repeated medical events have decreased by 15%, enabling Operation Smile to provide better care to more children worldwide.

Ontada — a McKesson business dedicated to oncology data and evidence, clinical education and point-of-care technologies — needed a way to generate key insights across 150 million unstructured oncology documents. Using Microsoft Azure AI and Azure OpenAI Service, Ontada developed a data platform solution called ON.Genuity to provide AI-driven insights into the patient journey, enhance patient trial matching and identify care gaps. The company also implemented large language models to target nearly 100 critical oncology data elements across 39 cancer types, enabling the company to analyze an estimated 70% of previously inaccessible data, reduce processing time by 75% and accelerate product time-to-market from months to just one week.

As the UK’s largest pet care company, Pets at Home sought a way to combat fraud across its retail operations — particularly as its online business continued to grow. Working closely with its fraud team, it adopted Copilot Studio to develop an AI agent that quickly identifies suspicious transactions. The agent autonomously gathers relevant information, performs analysis and shares it with a fraud agent to enable a manual, data-intensive investigative process while ensuring a human remains in the loop. With this low-code agent extending and seamlessly integrating into existing systems, the company’s fraud department can act more quickly; what used to take 20 to 30 minutes is now handled by the AI agent within seconds. The company is identifying fraud 10 times faster and is processing 20 times more cases a day. Now, the company can operate at scale with speed, efficiency and accuracy — with savings expected to be in the seven figures as it continues to build more agents.

Revenue Grid, a technology company specializing in sales engagement and revenue optimization solutions, partnered with Cloud Services to modernize its data infrastructure and develop a unified data warehouse capable of handling unstructured, semi-structured and structured data. By migrating to Microsoft Fabric, Revenue Grid can now deliver data-powered revenue intelligence, driven by a unified platform, elastic scalability, enhanced analytics capabilities and streamlined operations. Revenue Grid has reduced infrastructure costs by 60% while enhancing its analytical capabilities to improve real-time data processing, empowering sales teams with accurate and diverse data. 

To better manage and integrate employee data across diverse regions and systems, UST built a comprehensive Employee Data platform on Microsoft Fabric. In under a year, UST migrated 20 years of employee data with all security measures to enhance data accessibility and employee productivity. The Meta Data Driven Integration (MDDI) framework in Fabric also helped the company cut data ingestion time by 50% so employees can focus more on analysis than preparation. As a result of this implementation, the company has seen an increase in collaboration and innovation from employees, helping put its values into action.

The Microsoft Commercial Marketplace offers millions of customers worldwide a convenient place to find, try and buy software and services across 140 countries. As a Marketplace partner, WeTransact is helping independent software vendors (ISVs) list and transact their software solutions — and find opportunities for co-selling and extending their reach to enterprise customers through development of the WeTransact platform. Powered by Azure OpenAI Service, the platform is changing the way partnerships are being built by using AI pairing to facilitate a “plug and play” reseller network. More than 300 ISVs worldwide have joined the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace using the WeTransact platform, cutting their time to publish by 75%.

The opportunity for AI to create value is no longer an ambition for the future — it is happening now, and organizational leaders across industries are investing in AI-first strategies to change the way they do business. We believe AI should empower human achievement and enrich the lives of employees; and we are uniquely differentiated to help you accelerate your AI Transformation responsibly and securely. Choosing the right technology provider comes down to trust, and I look forward to what we will achieve together as we partner with you on your AI journey.

The post The value of AI: How Microsoft’s customers and partners are creating differentiated AI solutions to reinvent how they do business today appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Organizational leaders in every industry around the world are evaluating ways AI can unlock opportunities, drive pragmatic innovation and yield value across their business. At Microsoft, we are dedicated to helping our customers accelerate AI Transformation by empowering human ambition with Copilots and agents, developing differentiated AI solutions and building scalable cybersecurity foundations. At Microsoft…
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Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, shared the below communication with Microsoft employees this morning.

As we begin the new year, it’s clear that we’re entering the next innings of this AI platform shift. 2025 will be about model-forward applications that reshape all application categories. More so than any previous platform shift, every layer of the application stack will be impacted. It’s akin to GUI, internet servers, and cloud-native databases all being introduced into the app stack simultaneously. Thirty years of change is being compressed into three years!

We will build agentic applications with memory, entitlements, and action space that will inherit powerful model capabilities. And we will adapt these capabilities for enhanced performance and safety across roles, business processes, and industry domains. Further, how we build, deploy, and maintain code for these AI applications is also fundamentally changing and becoming agentic.

This is leading to a new AI-first app stack — one with new UI/UX patterns, runtimes to build with agents, orchestrate multiple agents, and a reimagined management and observability layer. In this world, Azure must become the infrastructure for AI, while we build our AI platform and developer tools — spanning Azure AI Foundry, GitHub, and VS Code — on top of it. In other words, our AI platform and tools will come together to create agents, and these agents will come together to change every SaaS application category, and building custom applications will be driven by software (i.e. “service as software”).

The good news is that we have been working at this for more than two years and have learned a lot in terms of the systems, app platform, and tools required for the AI era. To more rapidly and boldly advance our roadmap across each of these layers, we are creating a new engineering organization: CoreAI – Platform and Tools.

This new division will bring together Dev Div, AI Platform, and some key teams from the Office of the CTO (AI Supercomputer, AI Agentic Runtimes, and Engineering Thrive), with the mission to build the end-to-end Copilot & AI stack for both our first-party and third-party customers to build and run AI apps and agents. This group will also build out GitHub Copilot, thus having a tight feedback loop between the leading AI-first product and the AI platform to motivate the stack and its roadmap.

Jay Parikh will lead this group as EVP of CoreAI – Platform and Tools, with Eric Boyd, Jason Taylor, Julia Liuson, Tim Bozarth, and their respective teams reporting to Jay.

Jay will work closely with Scott, Rajesh, Charlie, Mustafa, and Kevin to optimize our entire tech stack for both performance and efficiency. Additionally, Jay and team will lead our progress and work around developer productivity and Engineering Thrive across the company.

As our cloud infrastructure business continues to grow and scale to become Microsoft’s largest business, Scott will continue to lead Cloud + AI to ensure we’re delivering the quality, security, and innovation that our customers and partners count on for their most mission-critical applications, databases, and AI workloads.

Ultimately, we must remember that our internal organizational boundaries are meaningless to both our customers and to our competitors. When we talk about operating as One Microsoft, we are effectively talking about how we are continually increasing our customer focus, raising the bar on our innovation, and driving accountability, so we can truly live up to our mission.

Our success in this next phase will be determined by having the best AI platform, tools, and infrastructure. We have a lot of work to do and a tremendous opportunity ahead, and together, I’m looking forward to building what comes next.

Satya

The post Introducing Core AI – Platform and Tools appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, shared the below communication with Microsoft employees this morning. As we begin the new year, it’s clear that we’re entering the next innings of this AI platform shift. 2025 will be about model-forward applications that reshape all application categories. More so than any previous platform shift, every layer of the…
The post Introducing Core AI – Platform and Tools appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.Read More