Organisations investing in artificial intelligence earn significant profits, with generative AI delivering an average return on investment of $3.70 per dollar spent, and some companies achieving up to $10, according to The Business Opportunity of AI, an IDC study commissioned by Microsoft.
“For customers to understand the business opportunity of AI, they need to see how it can directly impact their top and bottom line,” says Sam Murley, general manager of industrial AI and strategic partnerships at Microsoft. “We work closely with customers to identify the practical benefits of AI for their business, such as increased efficiency, cost savings and differentiation through innovation that creates new revenue streams.
“Successful AI adoption occurs when customers prioritise connecting AI initiatives to their profit and loss. They clarify the goals of AI and communicate the purpose of these changes before focusing on implementation. One of the most effective ways to accelerate adoption of AI initiatives is by capturing business value across scale and multi-year deployments, creating proof of value in the near term, and leveraging lighthouse locations to demonstrate feasibility and business impact against high-priority scenarios.”
Cross-industry impact
Murley outlines three essential steps for successful AI transformation: maintaining strong security standards, consolidating data and prioritising a human-centric approach to innovation.
“Ensuring robust security measures is paramount as organisations integrate AI into their operations, safeguarding sensitive data and maintaining trust,” says Murley. “Data harmonisation and creating an AI-ready data estate are critical for deriving actionable insights. This involves integrating diverse data sources in a secure and compliant way, standardising data formats and ensuring data quality and accessibility. Lastly, a human-centric approach to AI innovation focuses on enhancing user experiences and driving meaningful outcomes, ensuring that technological advancements align with human needs and ethical considerations. These themes collectively drive successful AI transformations, enabling industries to harness AI’s potential while maintaining security and fostering innovation.”
Organisations across industries also need to implement AI solutions that address their specific needs and use cases.
“Industry-specific AI models can significantly enhance organisational efficiency by leveraging domain-specific knowledge and data to tailor solutions that address unique challenges and opportunities within a particular industry,” explains Murley. “Because these models are trained on data that is highly relevant to the industry, they allow for more accurate and context-aware insights. This customisation ensures that the AI solutions are directly applicable to the organisation’s operations, leading to more effective decision-making.”
For example, medical professionals at Chi Mei Medical Center in Taiwan are serving double the number of patients per day with help from a generative AI assistant built on Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service. Two-thirds of the pharmacists are using A+ Pharmacist copilot to summarise patients’ clinical information from multiple databases including medication lists, surgical records, allergy history, lab tests and medical records. According to Hui-Chen Su, head of the pharmacy department at the centre, the copilot means one pharmacist can see 30 patients per day rather than 15. This allows pharmacists to spend more time caring for patients with complex needs.
Medline, a medical supply manufacturer, has also partnered with Microsoft to use AI to improve healthcare supply chain operations.
“The solution, called Mpower, aims to leverage AI-generated insights to save time and improve inventory management,” says Murley. “This partnership aims to reduce disruptions and enable healthcare professionals to focus more on patient care. The solution combines customer and supplier data to provide actionable, predictive recommendations for healthcare supply chain professionals.”
AI-powered Microsoft technology is also enhancing supply chain operations in the consumer goods industry. CONA Services – a Coca-Cola system IT services company – has combined data from demand, supply, transportation and production into one solution. Built on Azure with help from Microsoft partners Blue Yonder and Snowflake, the solution enables employees to access all data in one place. “Technology has made our company more resilient by putting cohesive enterprise planning all together in one place under the Blue Yonder roof,” says Baron Jordan, chief product officer of supply chain at CONA Services, which is now exploring how AI-driven innovations can take its operations to the next level.
Another retailer implementing AI is Coles Group in Australia. The supermarket chain will use AI-powered models, powered by Azure OpenAI, to generate 1.6 billion productions on the flow of 20,000 stock-keeping units per day. Its Microsoft-powered Intelligent Edge Backbone system uses data from internet of things sensors across the supply chain to enable real-time stock visibility and predict supply chain disruptions across 850 stores.
Coles Group will use AI models, powered by Azure OpenAI, to streamline its store and supply chain operations
Similarly, technology firm and manufacturer Siemens is using Microsoft’s AI tools for operational improvements. The company is using Microsoft Copilot for Dynamics 365 within its Smart Infrastructure Buildings Business Unit to streamline the creation of over 1.4 million annual work-order reports generated by its more than 10,000 field technicians. The solution aims to generate higher-quality, standardised reports, improving customer communication, supporting efficient facility operations and boosting the firm’s sustainability efforts.
These use cases are made possible by the robust infrastructure underpinning the AI technologies. As the adoption of AI accelerates, so does the demand for the data centre capacity required to support these innovations. Microsoft’s efforts ensure that as industries transform with AI, the underlying infrastructure evolves in an environmentally conscious way, enabling organisations to innovate responsibly while contributing to global sustainability goals.
“The growth in AI adoption has driven a significant increase in data centre activity, with global workloads in 2020 being nine times what they were in 2010,” says Murley. “At Microsoft, we are continuously researching and innovating ways to make our data centres and AI systems more energy and water efficient. In the coming years, new data centres will come online that consume zero water for cooling, and we’ll expand our use of super-efficient liquid cooling systems, such as cold plates. Furthermore, we’re investing in carbon-free energy sources like wind, geothermal, nuclear and solar power, ensuring that AI’s growth does not come at the expense of sustainability.”
The agentic shift
AI solutions are poised to reshape the future of enterprise and public sector operations, with intelligent agents able to seamlessly integrate with every aspect of a business.
“These agents, powered by advanced AI models, will be able to provide real-time insights and automate complex workflows, scaling the impact every individual and team can drive to improve operations and end customer experiences,” says Murley. “They will free up human talent to focus on more strategic and creative endeavours. The ability to process and analyse vast amounts of data with unprecedented speed and accuracy will unlock new dimensions of efficiency and innovation, transforming how organisations operate and compete in the global marketplace.”
At Microsoft Ignite 2024, Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft, revealed new AI-powered agents across Microsoft 365 Copilot to help organisations better scale individual impact and transform business process. For example, SharePoint agents allow every employee to quickly tap into their SharePoint knowledge base with agents that can answer questions about specific files, folders or sites. Meanwhile, the Facilitator agents in Teams take real-time notes from meetings and chats. These agents complement the 10 autonomous agents announced for Dynamics 365 users, which help build capacity for team members in sales, services, finance and supply chain departments to drive business outcomes and improve customer experiences.
Organisations are already starting to build their own AI agents with Microsoft technology. For example, vehicle manufacturer Toyota Motor Corporation has used Azure OpenAI Service to build a collection of AI agents for its O-Beya system. Using OpenAI’s multimodal GPT-4 large language models, the system answers questions on a variety of topics using information sourced from Toyota’s design data, including past engineering design reports, regulatory information and documents handwritten by veteran engineers. For instance, an engine agent can answer questions related to engine output while a regulatory agent provides answers on emissions limits.
Microsoft customers can also build and manage custom agents with Copilot Studio, and connect them to Copilot. These agents can range from simple prompt-and-response to fully autonomous.
Toyota has built AI agents to answer employee questions based on its own design data (image credit: Noriko Harashi for Microsoft)
“Think of agents as the new apps for an AI-powered world,” says Jared Spataro, chief marketing officer of AI at Work at Microsoft. “Every organisation will have a constellation of agents – ranging from simple prompt-and-response to fully autonomous. They will work on behalf of an individual, team or function to execute and orchestrate businesses process. Copilot is how you’ll interact with these agents, and they’ll do everything from accelerating lead generation and processing sales orders to automating your supply chain.”
As AI continues to evolve, several emerging trends are set to further revolutionise how businesses and public sector organisations operate, unlocking even greater potential for innovation and efficiency. Murley explains that the integration of AI with edge computing, AI-driven digital twins and advancements in natural language processing all have the potential to open new possibilities across various industries.
“As we stand on the brink of this technological revolution, it is imperative that we harness AI not just as a tool, but as a catalyst for change,” he says. “By fostering a culture of continuous learning, we can ensure that AI serves as a force for good, driving sustainable growth and creating a world where technology and humanity coexist harmoniously.”
Partner perspectives
We asked selected Microsoft partners how they are working with Microsoft to develop AI solutions that deliver real value for their customers
“We use Azure OpenAI for an AI-driven dialogue management platform with real-time transcription, sentiment analysis and summaries, which enhances issue resolution speeds and reduces interaction handling times,” says Stoyan Stoitsev, product manager at Anywhere365. “Our Deepdesk-acquired Agent Assist, trained on historical data and internal knowledge bases, aids rapid agent onboarding, provides accurate answers and suggests actions while maintaining the right tone.”
“AVEVA has teamed up with Microsoft to elevate its Industrial AI Assistant on CONNECT, extending the power of Azure OpenAI services,” says Jim Chappell, global head of AI and advanced analytics at AVEVA. “Now, users can tell the assistant what they want and it will generate results on the fly, including customised dashboards with pie charts and stacked bars.”
“Holistic AI’s governance platform, available on Azure Marketplace, enables AI workloads to make it into production more quickly,” says Adriano Koshiyama, co-CEO and co-founder of Holistic AI. “By providing visibility into how AI is used across the organisation, Holistic AI acts as a portal for teams to self-assess and report, creating a unified dashboard for observability and accountability.”
“When investigating a security alert, the details within the alert are often not enough to understand the full context,” says Andrew Smeaton, cheif information security officer at Jamf. “Jamf’s plugin for Microsoft Security Copilot addresses this by providing device information directly from Jamf, giving security analysts a clearer picture of what occurred on the device through the power of AI.”
“MetaViewer harnesses the power of cloud and AI technology to transform how organisations handle accounts,” says Andy Birkey, marketing communications specialist at Metafile Information Systems. “The integration with Microsoft’s cloud technology ensures that teams can access accounts payable (AP) data securely from anywhere, promoting flexibility and collaboration.”
“Zebra is working with Microsoft and companies from its partner ecosystem – including Qualcomm Technologies and SAP – to develop generative AI-powered solutions for frontline workers,” says Rowan Fuller, global sales leader of consulting partners and alliances at Zebra Technologies. “From retail to healthcare, we are helping customers to identify efficiency and productivity gains with our technology.”
Read more from these partners and others in the Winter 2024 issue of Technology Record. Don’t miss out – subscribe for free today and get future issues delivered straight to your inbox.