Vodafone & Microsoft 10-year Partnership Prioritises Gen AI
Global tech giants Vodafone and Microsoft have signed a ten year partnership agreement that sees the pair increase offerings of scaled digital platforms to more than 300 million businesses, public sector organisations, and consumers across Europe and Africa.
Cloud and customer-centric AI services are to be a focus, with Vodfaone investing US$1.5bn.
A decade of AI development and employment
“Today, Vodafone has made a bold commitment to the digital future of Europe and Africa,” says Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group CEO.
“This unique strategic partnership with Microsoft will accelerate the digital transformation of our business customers, particularly small and medium-sized companies, and step up the quality of customer experience for consumers.”
The companies have identified five key areas of collaboration:
- Generative AI: Applying the power of Microsoft Azure OpenAI to increase personalisation across all Vodafone customer touchpoints, including TOBi, the Vodafone digital assistant. Microsoft Copilot will be utilised by Vodafone employees to boost digital efficiency.
- Scaling IoT: Vodafone will become part of the Azure ecosystem, making its Internet of Things which currently connects 175 million devices and platforms worldwide, available to a vast developer and third-party community using open APIs. Microsoft will also further invest in the Vodafone IoT.
- Africa digital acceleration: The partnership aims to enrich the lives of 100 million consumers and 1 million SMEs across the African continent by enhancing digital literacy, skilling and youth outreach programs, as well as offer digital services to the SME market. M-Pesa, the largest financial technology platform in Africa, will be housed on Azure to enable new cloud-native applications.
- Enterprise growth: Vodafone’s distribution of Microsoft services, including Microsoft Azure, security solutions and Microsoft Teams Phone Mobile, will further support business customers to deploy Microsoft’s cloud-based services at pace, supporting SME development.
- Cloud transformation: Vodafone will adopt Microsoft Azure in its data centres, working to modernise the essential technology.
“This new generation of AI will unlock massive new opportunities for every organisation and every industry around the world,” shares Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft.
“We are delighted that together with Vodafone we will apply the latest cloud and AI technology to enhance the customer experience of hundreds of millions of people and businesses across Africa and Europe, build new products and services, and accelerate the company’s transition to the cloud.”
**************
Make sure you check out the latest industry news and insights at Mobile Magazine and also sign up to our global conference series - Tech & AI LIVE 2024
**************
Mobile Magazine is a BizClik brand
*************
