Avanade, the leading Microsoft solutions provider, today announced the official launch of its first Artificial Intelligence (AI) Hub in Europe and Middle East (EME). Located within Avanade’s Barcelona office, the Hub marks another milestone in Avanade’s commitment to fostering innovation, enabling industry transformation, and growing local talent in the region.

The Hub will form part of the new Centre for AI at Avanade in Europe and Middle East, which will strengthen collaboration with clients and partners and bring together all parts of Avanade’s AI vision, strategy, and execution. The Hub will help organisations accelerate their AI readiness through the delivery of AI and generative AI solutions and build up their capabilities to extract business value from their data. It also aims to help organisations adopt an AI-first mindset by demonstrating how the responsible and innovative use of AI and generative AI can enable employees in different functions achieve higher productivity.

Recent research by Avanade reveals that almost all (97%) of business and IT professionals are using AI in their current roles at least weekly, with most (57%) using it daily – most often for automating regular repetitive tasks. And by the end of 2024, 85% of organisations believe their customers will be ready for most, if not all, of their interactions and processes to be done through AI. To stay competitive, almost all (92%) say that their organisation needs to shift to an AI-first operating model within the next 12 months.

In collaboration with the Avanade Barcelona Innovation Centre and Accenture, the Hub will provide immersive workshops and demonstrations, to empower clients with tangible experiences that showcase the vast potential of AI and generative AI-driven solutions. The features organisations can expect from Avanade’s AI Hub include:

• Chatting with Your Data: Clients can seamlessly engage with their data through interactive conversations. This eliminates the need for intricate dashboards or reporting skills and allows more functions and employees to effectively use data to drive business outcomes.
• Real-Time Voice Analytics: Clients will have the chance to gain instant insights from their conversations with AI onsite. Users can see how valuable insights are extracted during moments of truth in customer interactions through conversation transcription, sentiment analysis, and other avenues.
• Image Generation Demo: Clients can visualise the creative capabilities of generative AI by creating visuals and designs using text inputs.

“With AI reshaping industries and redefining the relationship between people and technology, Avanade’s AI Hub is the ideal sandbox for our client to reimagine products and services for their customers and what the future of work looks like for their employees,” said Anna Di Silverio, EME President, Avanade. “The investment reinforces our commitment to unleash the potential of the EME region – by helping organisations to uncover the transformative capabilities of AI and data, while also navigating the recently approved legislation of the European Union’s AI Act.”

As a pioneer in AI, Avanade has collaborated closely with Microsoft - gaining early access to cutting-edge technologies such as Microsoft 365 Copilot, Security Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Azure OpenAI Service. This deep and long-term partnership has enabled Avanade, together with Accenture, to develop AI-powered solutions on the Microsoft platform to drive industry and functional transformation globally.

Avanade’s AI Hub is set to bring together best practices, expertise, and know-how to drive operational excellence and power a new era of AI and Generative AI in Europe. The Hub also complements Avanade’s Generative AI services: the Avanade AI Organisational Readiness Framework and Avanade AI Governance Quick Start Service.

Together with Accenture, Avanade was most recently named Microsoft Country Partner of the Year in Germany, Greece, France, Portugal, and the UK. The companies also recently partnered with Microsoft to announce the creation of Responsible AI Innovation Centres in Spain and Portugal to accelerate the deployment of AI and generative AI projects in companies and public administrations.