This week, we received some exciting news: Avanade and Accenture were officially named the inaugural Global Business Transformation Partner of the Year for Copilot during the Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards.

Winning awards is always a nice feeling (we also were named Microsoft’s Global SI Partner of the Year for a record 19th time!), but I’ll admit that this Copilot recognition is a personal point of pride. I’ve spent the past year on the steering committee for Avanade’s internal Copilot rollout, working with stakeholders across our business as we hammered out our deployment plan for the full suite of Copilots. And now, with this brand-new award recognition as a benchmark, I’ve been thinking of how far we’ve come in just 12 months.

Of course, AI isn’t an overnight phenomenon – we've been working with Microsoft on various AI technologies for more than a decade now – but the rapid acceleration of generative AI and Large Language Models ushered in a new frontier of innovation. Suddenly, AI was democratized, poised to change the trajectory of massive companies and individuals alike. How were we going to seize this moment? 

We started our journey from the inside out. Thanks to our privileged relationship with Microsoft, we were brought in as early adopters of Copilot and hunkered down to develop a two-part approach for deployment. On the one hand, we recognized the enormous potential for Copilot to unlock growth for our clients. But to truly understand the transformative power of this technology, we knew we needed to understand how Copilot could work for our people through real experience – in other words, to become our own client zero for Microsoft Copilot.

That required a responsible, people-first approach, keeping our AI systems in lockstep with our values. We launched Avanade’s first-ever Responsible AI policy – which encompasses elements like trust, transparency and accountability – in 2023, and created a School of AI training hub with multi-part learning plans for our early users. From there, we were able to roll out 1,000 Copilot licenses across the business by the end of 2023, and the number grows larger every day.

The results so far have been stunning. In an internal study, we found 70% of users reported greater likelihood of fostering a creative approach to tasks, and 84% of people felt a greater sense of accomplishment in their work. Personally, I’ve been using Copilot now for more than a year, and it’s been a game-changer for helping me track down information, sift through it and quickly gain insights.

As an early adopter and part of Microsoft’s Early Access Program, we have had the unique opportunity to innovate alongside Microsoft on this AI technology before it hits the market. This experience has been instrumental in our early Copilot work with clients, enabling us to deploy market-leading Copilot offerings on day one of general availability. We’ve deepened this momentum through the rollout of industry Copilots and Microsoft Agents for Copilot. And now, our steering committee continues to run global engagements to show clients what Copilot can do for their business.

I see this Microsoft award as a testament to the partnership between our internal IT organization and many parts of our client-facing business. It’s been a real team effort, and we have seen teams come together to learn, share and collaborate in a way that has enabled us to be able to focus on what really matters to clients, which is understanding the role Copilot will play in their business.

I’m taking time to celebrate this accomplishment as proof of our team’s ability to get generative AI safely and responsibly into the hands of employees, both within Avanade and throughout organizations across the world. At the same time, I know we’re only at the beginning of our Copilot journey. We are already starting to see the possibilities of expanding Copilot even further, integrating into other apps and systems, or even building custom Copilots. And the launch of Agents brings a whole new level of possibility for handing off tasks and achieving unprecedented productivity.

With a fresh award in our hands, it’s more exciting than ever to be part of this new frontier for generative AI – I can’t wait to see where we are this time next year.