At Microsoft Ignite 2024, some of the world's largest organisations showcased real-world examples of how they are harnessing the power of Microsoft's Copilot and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to transform operations, enhance customer experiences, and drive cost efficiencies. 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.
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Microsoft Ignite 2024 and AI Adoption
According to Microsoft, Organisations across the globe are dedicating considerable resources to implementing generative AI into their workstreams to benefit their employees and customers. Microsoft stated that its internal data along with third-party research reflects the ongoing AI boom, as over 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies are using Microsoft AI. Nearly 70 percent of the Fortune 500 are using Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Microsoft's AI Revolution: IDC Survey
Furthermore, Microsoft cited a Global IDC survey of enterprises that found Generative AI usage jumped from 55 percent in 2023 to?75 percent in 2024. IDC also forecasts worldwide spending on AI will reach USD 632 billion by 2028. IDC's study included more than 4,000 business leaders and AI decision-makers around the world. IDC InfoBrief is sponsored by Microsoft.
Key AI Success Stories from Industry Leaders
From space exploration to automotive engineering, companies like NASA, Accenture, ABB, and Air India highlighted the impact of generative AI. Here's a breakdown of key AI success stories from the event that Microsoft shared on November 19:
1. NASA: Earth Copilot, created with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, enables more efficient management of Earth science data.
2. Accenture: Rolled out Microsoft 365 Copilots to 100,000 employees, planning to expand to 200,000 more.
3. ABB Group: Used Azure OpenAI Service to build Genix Copilot, improving carbon footprint management and boosting operational efficiency. ABB says this approach can help customers see up to 40 percent cost savings in operations and maintenance, a 30 percent boost in production efficiency, and a 25 percent improvement in sustainability.
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 provide specific, actionable insights.
"With Genix Copilot as a service, we are expecting at least 20 percent 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 percent reduction in service calls because they can be taken care of by Genix Copilot before those calls need to reach a support agent."
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4. Air India: India's flagship carrier has enhanced customer service with AI.g, automating daily queries, resulting in savings and improved service, according to Microsoft.
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 has enabled millions of automated customer interactions, freeing up contact center staff for more complex issues.
"We have doubled our passenger count since early 2022," said 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."
5. Campari Group: A company in the spirits industry with products in nearly 200 countries leveraged Microsoft 365 Copilot to streamline internal workflows, saving employees time and boosting productivity.
Early adopters report saving 16 to 30 minutes a day; 80 percent say it speeds up tasks, 81 percent report higher productivity, 86 percent see improved work quality, 73 percent spend less mental effort on routine tasks, and 93 percent 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."
6. C.H. Robinson: One of the world's largest logistics platforms, automated its email price quoting using Azure AI, reducing response times from hours to seconds. Microsoft says the company's automated AI system now classifies incoming email, uses generative AI to piece together the details in it, and then replicates the steps a person would take to fulfill the customer's request. This automation has slashed email quote times from hours to 32 seconds, freeing employees for more valuable tasks.
"Incorporating Azure AI in our tech has helped put us on pace to achieve another 15 percent 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 could't be achieved before building this Azure-based generative AI solution."
7. Dentsu: An integrated marketing solutions agency used Azure AI to reduce media analysis time by 80 percent, optimising client campaigns. 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 percent.
"We can complete media plans faster and with more confidence to help clients optimise 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."
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8. Eaton: A power management company streamlined documentation processes with Microsoft 365 Copilot, saving time and improving efficiency.
Copilot helped Eaton document over 9,000 standard operating procedures (SOPs), resulting in an 83 percent time savings for each SOP. "We're working to get information out of people's heads, to get the expertise of the organisation into technology where it's accessible," said Katrina Redmond, CIO, Eaton Corp.
9. Lenovo: A global technology company enhanced support services using Dynamics 365 Contact Center with Copilot, reducing handling time and improving agent productivity. With the suggestions from Copilot, service representatives spend less time gathering and reviewing information and more time resolving the issue, the company highlighted.
"As a result, average handling time has fallen by 20 percent and agent productivity is up 15 percent," said Chen Lu, Director, Services IT Delivery, Lenovo. "And with higher satisfaction ratings, we know that customers are happier too."
10. Mars Veterinary Health: Developed RapidRead to speed up diagnostic image analysis, saving lives by providing faster results. To address the challenges of a global shortage of veterinary radiologists, Mars used a Mistral Large Language Model from the Azure AI Studio model catalogue 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, the company said.
"Clinics are now getting results in mere minutes versus hours or days," said Jerry Martin, Vice President, Research and Development at Mars Science and Diagnostics. "The significance of that can't be understated. We are saving more lives and pets are home with their families much, much faster."
11. Medigold Health: An occupational health provider based in the UK, transformed operations by automating health assessments, improving clinician job satisfaction and retention. 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. According to the statement, this has significantly reduced the administrative burdens on clinicians, leading to a 58 percent 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 optimise 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."
12. Ontada: Part of McKesson Corp, an oncology technology and insights business, Ontada 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.
"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."Utilising Azure OpenAI Service, we are now processing over 150 million unstructured data documents in half the time it previously took."
13. Toyota Motor Corporation: A car manufacturer used 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.
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 at 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."
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According to the survey, with AI's impact growing, the return on investment (ROI) for companies is significant, with each dollar invested in generative AI yielding a 3.7x return.
