From enhancing customer experience to accelerating research and development, organizations across industries share stories of AI successes

CHICAGO, Nov. 19, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Some of the world's largest and most impactful organizations are at Microsoft Ignite today, sharing real-world examples of how their investments in the Microsoft Copilot and AI stack are transforming their businesses and driving impact. Ignite is Microsoft's annual flagship event showcasing the latest innovations and product updates to enable customers, partners and developers to unleash the full potential of Microsoft's technology.

Organizations across the globe are dedicating considerable resources to implementing generative AI into their workstreams to benefit their employees and customers. In the past week alone, NASA's Earth Science Data Systems Program announced the creation of its Earth Copilot solution with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. Accenture said it's rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilots and agents to 100,000 employees, with a commitment to deploy 200,000 more. Hundreds of other customers shared real examples of how they are embracing Microsoft's AI capabilities to drive impact and shape today's platform shift to AI.

Internal Microsoft data along with third-party research reflects the ongoing AI boom.

• More than 85% of the Fortune 500 are using Microsoft AI.
• Nearly 70% of the Fortune 500 are using Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• A global IDC surveyi of enterprise organizations found that:
  • Generative AI usage jumped from 55% in 2023 to 75% in 2024.
  • For every $1 a company invests in generative AI, the return on investment (ROI) is $3.7x.
• IDCii also forecasts worldwide spending on AI will reach $632 billion by 2028.

While these numbers are impressive, they don't necessarily tell a story, people do. Here are some of their AI success stories:

ABB Group, a manufacturing and operations automation provider, is using generative AI to help industrial-sector customers better manage their carbon footprint. The company turned to Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to build Genix Copilot, a generative AI solution that integrates with its core Genix industrial IoT and analytics suite to answer customer questions in natural language and provides specific, actionable insights. For example, when a customer asked, "What's the status of carbon emission across all our plants?" Genix Copilot reported that a plant was nearing its carbon emissions cap and recommended specific steps to prevent a breach. ABB says this proactive approach can help customers see up to 40% cost savings in operations and maintenance, a 30% boost in production efficiency, and a 25% improvement in sustainability. The new solution is also helping ABB's own teams improve the way they work. "With Genix Copilot as a service, we are expecting at least 20% more momentum in sales," said Rajesh Ramachandran, Global Chief Digital Officer for Process Automation at ABB. "We can close deals faster, it brings a new set of customers and it increases existing customer sales. We are (also) seeing an 80% reduction in service calls because they can be taken care of by Genix Copilot before those calls need to reach a support agent."

Air India, the nation's flagship carrier, has significantly enhanced its customer experience by migrating its workloads to Microsoft Azure. Faced with outdated technology, the airline sought modernization to improve service for millions of passengers. By implementing Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and the latest GPT models, Air India developed AI.g, a virtual assistant capable of handling 30,000 daily queries on topics like bookings and flight status. This innovation has enabled millions of automated customer interactions, freeing up contact center staff for more complex issues. The transition to Azure has not only improved the customer experience and operational efficiency but also led to significant financial savings. "We have doubled our passenger count since early 2022," said Dr. Satya Ramaswamy, Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Air India. "But the call volume in our contact center remains the same — about 9,000 queries daily. That's because AI.g is handling about 10,000 a day. That saves us several million dollars a year. And AI.g would not have been possible without strong collaboration with Microsoft."

Campari Group, a leader in the spirits industry with products in nearly 200 countries, embraced Microsoft 365 Copilot to enable its employees — called Camparistas — to embed Generative AI capabilities in their daily work. Microsoft 365 Copilot is helping teams streamline meeting prep and recaps, allowing employees to focus on discussions instead of manual tasks. Early adopters report saving 16 to 30 minutes a day; 80% say it speeds up tasks, 81% report higher productivity, 86% see improved work quality, 73% spend less mental effort on routine tasks, and 93% feel confident using it. "Copilot is a game changer," said Jeremie Mortiz, Global Consumer Engagement Senior Director at Campari Group. "It can multiply your strengths and give you that partner to push ideas further and break out of your daily routine. We're focusing on what matters most — creativity and decision-making rather than spending time on time-consuming tasks."

C.H. Robinson, one of the world's largest logistics platforms, automated its email price quoting system using Microsoft Azure AI to significantly reduce response times for over 2,000 daily pricing requests from shippers. The company's automated AI system now classifies incoming email, uses generative AI to piece together the details in it, then replicates the steps a person would take to fulfill the customer's request. This automation has slashed email quote times from hours to just 32 seconds, freeing employees for more valuable tasks. "Incorporating Azure AI in our tech has helped put us on pace to achieve another 15% increase in productivity this year," said Mark Albrecht, Vice President, Data Science, C.H. Robinson. "Big picture, this tech makes it possible to automate virtually any kind of email transaction and capture efficiencies in global supply chains that just couldn't be achieved before building this Azure-based generative AI solution."

Dentsu, an integrated marketing solutions agency, is relying on Microsoft Azure AI to better serve its clients. Faced with the growing complexity of media metrics, Dentsu used Azure AI Studio, Azure Machine Learning, and Azure OpenAI Service to develop a copilot to help employees interpret results via conversational chat and reduce analysis time by 80%. This not only improves model accuracy but also promises millions in savings by enhancing clients' return on advertising spend. "We can complete media plans faster and with more confidence to help clients optimize their media spend and exceed their goals for customer response," said Becca Kline, Senior Director of Analytics, Dentsu. "Before, our client-facing media planners might have to wait weeks. Once we roll this out, it will take minutes. It's a huge time-saver."

Eaton, an intelligent power management company, is leveraging to Microsoft 365 Copilot to help streamline and automate operations, improve data access, centralize knowledge, and empower teams to focus on higher-value tasks. One immediate challenge addressed through Copilot focused on the manual, time-consuming documentation process in Eaton's Finance operations. Copilot helped Eaton document over 9,000 standard operating procedures (SOPs), resulting in an 83% time savings for each SOP. "We're working to get information out of people's heads, to get the expertise of the organization into technology where it's accessible," said Katrina Redmond, CIO, Eaton Corp.

Lenovo is a global technology company with a broad portfolio that includes devices, infrastructure, IT services and complex solutions. Its Premier Support services team is using Dynamics 365 Contact Center and Dynamics 365 Customer Service, both with Copilot, to deliver an AI-powered chat service to streamline support operations and keep pace with growing demand. Thanks to real-time, high-quality suggestions from Copilot, service reps spend less time gathering and reviewing information and more time resolving the issue. "As a result, average handling time has fallen by 20% and agent productivity is up 15%," said Chen Lu, Director, Services IT Delivery, Lenovo. "And with higher satisfaction ratings, we know that customers are happier too."

Mars Veterinary Health provides preventive, general, specialty and emergency veterinary care for millions of pets each year. To address the challenges of a global shortage of veterinary radiologists, Mars used a Mistral Large Language Model from the Azure AI Studio model catalog to build RapidRead, a new diagnostic tool to review X-ray images and provide a diagnosis for a human radiologist to review. RapidRead's capabilities have potentially saved hundreds of pets in life-threatening situations. "Clinics are now getting results in mere minutes versus hours or days," said Jerry Martin, Vice President, Research & Development at Mars Science & Diagnostics. "The significance of that can't be understated. We are saving more lives and pets are home with their families much, much faster. For Mars, that is the best metric by which we can measure our success."

Medigold Health, an occupational health provider based in the U.K., has transformed its operations with Microsoft Azure. Specializing in workplace health risk reduction and employee well-being, Medigold supports over 3,500 businesses with a team of over 1,000 employees, including 450 clinicians and technicians. The company turned to Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Azure Cosmos DB and Azure SQL Database to automate manual aspects of traditional client health assessments like extensive notetaking, dictation and report generation. This has significantly reduced the administrative burdens on clinicians, leading to a 58% rise in clinician retention and job satisfaction. "The tools allow reports to be generated from the clinician's consultation notes in approximately 15 seconds," said Alex Goldsmith, Chief Executive Officer, Medigold Health. "They must then simply review, edit and sign off the report, saving them a lot of time over the course of a day. The time saved helps them optimize clinician-patient time, and they no longer have to work over their hours to get reports written. One clinician told me that since we started using AI, they've been able to see their family more — that means everything."

Ontada, part of McKesson Corp., is an oncology technology and insights business dedicated to transforming the fight against cancer. The company turned to Microsoft Azure AI, including Azure OpenAI Service, to process more than 150 million unstructured oncology document components including clinician notes, prescriptions and testing. This helps researchers extract potentially valuable information that was previously unanalyzed or unused to accelerate research and development and ultimately help bring new treatments to patients. "We were collecting the right data, but it's impossible for a human to make the correlations needed to gather meaningful insights," said Amy O'Sullivan, Chief Research Officer, Ontada."Utilizing Azure OpenAI Service, we are now processing over 150 million unstructured data documents in half the time it previously took."

Toyota Motor Corporation, a nearly 100-year-old car manufacturer, is tapping the power of generative AI to accelerate innovation and ensure expert knowledge is retained as senior engineers retire. The company used Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Azure Functions and Cosmos DB to build a system of generative AI agents to store and share internal expertise with the goal of developing new vehicle models faster. For example, an engineer might ask the system how to make a car run faster. An engine agent might give an answer related to engine output while a regulatory agent provides an answer on limits to emissions, which the system then consolidates into a single reply. Toyota says its powertrain engineering team uses the new solution hundreds of times a month. "These experts are relatively senior," said Kenji Onishi, automotive engineer, Toyota. "When they retire, their knowledge will be gone. The mission here is to prevent it from happening. So we'd like to transfer this knowledge to the next generation."

To learn more about how leading companies around the world are embracing Microsoft AI capabilities to reinvent customer engagement, enrich employee experiences, reshape business processes, and bend the curve on innovation, visit the Microsoft AI in Action page.

Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) creates platforms and tools powered by AI to deliver innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers. The technology company is committed to making AI available broadly and doing so responsibly, with a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

i IDC InfoBrief: sponsored by Microsoft, 2024 Business Opportunity of AI, IDC# US52699124, November 2024
ii IDC Press Release, Worldwide Spending on Artificial Intelligence Forecast to Reach $632 Billion in 2028, According to a New IDC Spending Guide, August 2024

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.