Amber Hickman |
Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft, revealed the new Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program and other artificial intelligence opportunities for partners during the Microsoft Inspire keynote, which took place on 18 July.
As part of the keynote, Nadella showcased the new Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, which will allow partners to build on the Azure AI platform and Copilot stack, earn AI certifications, leverage Microsoft’s investments and incentives and scale their AI go-to-market strategies.
“It’s really exciting to see us completely revamp the investments, the incentives so that you all can really take advantage of everything that this AI age has to offer and drive both business growth for yourselves and, most importantly, value for our customers,” said Nadella.
Also in the keynote, Nadella unveiled the new Bing Chat Enterprise, an AI-powered chat designed to help organisations keep data confidential while allowing employees to gain AI-generated responses that take workplace-specific information into account.
“We now have a new superpower, we have a reasoning engine that allows us to start with a draft for any activity we want to complete,” said Nadella in his opening speech on the potential of natural language.
Nadella also shared new updates to Azure AI, including increased availability for Azure OpenAI Service in North America and Western Europe, and availability in Asia for the first time.
Judson Althoff, executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Microsoft, then took to the stage to discuss how Microsoft will help its AI cloud partners stand out from the competition. He explained how the new AI Cloud Partner Program will take the capabilities of partners and Microsoft into account.
“Through the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, we’re providing partners with a comprehensive portfolio of investments for all partner business models at every stage of maturity, from startups to independent software vendors, services to device partners,” wrote Nicole Dezen, chief partner officer and corporate vice president of global partner solutions at Microsoft, in a blog post on the Microsoft website.
Also in a Microsoft blog post, Dominik Wee, corporate vice president of the manufacturing and mobility industry at Microsoft, shared that the AI Cloud Partner Program will include manufacturing partner solutions under new independent software vendor designations. The first wave of partners being added under the new designation include Accenture/Avanade, Capgemini, EY, PTC, Rockwell, Siemens, Sight Machine and more.
Discover more from Microsoft Inspire on the Microsoft website