Accenture has teamed up with Microsoft and Avanade to speed-up and scale their Copilot, generative AI, and agentic AI integrations.
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The global professional services company, Accenture, describes this as a “strategic move” driven by a demand for AI transformation.
Now, Accenture and the cloud and advisory services provider ‘Avanade’ are being supported by Microsoft to launch what it describes as a “copilot business transformation practice”.
The trio will also co-invest in new technologies to reinvent business functions with generative AI, agentic AI, and Copilot.
Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO, Accenture, outlines the benefits that its partnership with Microsoft will yield for its customers:
“The investment we are making with Microsoft takes our long-standing partnership to the next level, helping our clients accelerate and integrate AI at scale as a catalyst for reinvention.
“The powerful combination of Microsoft Copilot, agentic and generative AI technologies, and Avanade’s and Accenture’s deep industry and functional expertise will help enable enterprises to reimagine their processes and operations, discover innovative ways of working, strengthen their security and open up new pathways to value.”
‘Copilot Business Transformation Practice’
Copilot business transformation will enable clients to expand their use of Copilot and agents. They will also be able to collaborate on Copilot and AI agent templates, plugins, extensions, templates, and connectors.
From a security perspective, the companies will assist companies with the integration of Microsoft’s generative AI security features. This will also help analysts to make better decisions, Accenture asserts.
The practice comprises 5,000 professionals from Accenture and Avanade, alongside the support of Microsoft product specialists.
The team will have access to over 50,000 Microsoft Copilot experts from Accenture and Avanade to provide transformation at and industry and functional level.
As well as specialist engineers, clients will have access to innovative technologies like the Accenture AI Refinery, which it can use to create customised solutions.
Accenture will also utilise its experience from the 100,000 Microsoft 365 Copilots and agents that it has used and deployed. It has also committed to expand the offerings to around 200,000 users.
Judson Althoff, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at Microsoft, believes this partnership can help businesses to succeed: “We are pleased to deepen our collaboration with Accenture to help our mutual customers develop AI-first business processes responsibly and securely, while helping them drive market differentiation.
“By bringing together Copilots and human ambition, paired with the autonomous capabilities of an agent, we can accelerate AI transformation for organisations across industries and help them realise successful business outcomes through pragmatic innovation.”
Investing in Copilot
Accenture and Avanade have previously developed agents to improve workflows, revenue, and customer experience.
They have also invested in building Copilot solutions for Microsoft 365, industry and functional Copilots, and custom Copilots and agents.
Microsoft 365 Copilot solutions include a readiness assessment and value accelerator to ease adoption and scalability for clients.
The companies have developed Copilots for various industries and functions, such as manufacturing, finance, supply chain, consumer goods, retail, and healthcare.
Accenture and Avanade are using Microsoft Copilot Studio to grow foundational Copilots with enterprise knowledge so that autonomous agents can act on specific triggers or user intent to create AI-powered workflows.
According to Accenture, Microsoft chose Accenture to setup four Microsoft Co-Innovation Labs to keep its blueprints for AI experiments and designs. Here, companies will be able to create pilots using Copilot business transformation practice assets to “inspire” reinvention.
