This blog explores the benefits of modernizing and building intelligent applications with real-world examples and shows how organizations have increased speed and efficiency using Microsoft Azure’s comprehensive set of tools and services. We hope these customer success stories inspire you not only to embark on your own Azure AI journey, but also to explore newly released plans on Microsoft Learn specifically designed for building and modernizing AI applications.
In this new age of artificial intelligence, businesses across industries are realizing the power of intelligent applications to drive innovation and maintain a competitive edge. By leveraging cloud-native technologies and AI-powered tools, companies are modernizing their applications, creating new capabilities for their users, and creating new revenue streams. This blog explores the benefits of modernizing and building intelligent applications with real-world examples and shows how organizations have increased speed and efficiency using Microsoft Azure’s comprehensive set of tools and services. We hope these customer success stories inspire you not only to embark on your own Azure AI journey, but also to explore newly released plans on Microsoft Learn specifically designed for building and modernizing AI applications.
Azure AI is transforming businesses across sectors
Modernizing applications is a critical step for organizations that want to stay relevant in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, as legacy applications often struggle to meet modern performance, scalability, and security standards. In fact, a 2024 study by Forrester found that one in four business decision-makers said their organization was experiencing digital platform failure due to modernization issues.
By refactoring or re-platforming legacy applications using Azure’s cloud-native tools, businesses can gain greater flexibility, faster development cycles, and more efficient operations. According to a Forrester study, 89% of decision makers surveyed said their business plans to increase or at least maintain its current investments in application modernization over the next year to achieve key priorities and address modernization gaps.
Azure provides a comprehensive set of tools and services that enable businesses to build new applications and modernize existing applications and data assets using an intelligent application platform, cloud databases, Azure AI services, and Azure Machine Learning. These enable the creation of intelligent applications that use real-time cloud data and advanced analytics. Cloud-native applications in Azure benefit from features such as auto-scaling, microservices, and continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines that ensure high performance and cost-effectiveness.
Meet some of the many Azure customers who have not only been able to differentiate their businesses in the marketplace and accelerate product innovation by creating intelligent new AI-powered applications, but have also taught their teams with the latest Azure learning resources designed for adoption. AI applications.
ASOS: Using AI for personalized fashion recommendations
ASOS, a global online fashion retailer, used Azure AI Studio to revolutionize its customer experience by creating a virtual AI stylist that could interact with customers and help them discover new trends.
The ability to have a conversational interface brings us closer to our goals of fully engaging the customer and personalizing their experience by showing them the most relevant products at the most relevant time.
—Cliff Cohen, Chief Technology Officer, ASOS
Azure AI Studio enabled ASOS to rapidly develop and deploy their intelligent application, integrating natural language processing and computer vision capabilities. This demonstrates Azure’s ability to support cutting-edge AI applications in the retail sector, driving business growth and customer satisfaction.
CarMax: Revolutionary customer service with Azure OpenAI
CarMax, a leading US used car retailer, leveraged Azure OpenAI Service to build an AI-powered research assistant. This innovative tool has simplified the car buying process, providing customers with immediate and accurate information and increasing overall satisfaction.
“Our initial goal was customer review summaries for 5,000 car pages and we estimated that using our existing manual process it would take about 11 years to generate the content. Thanks to OpenAI, we achieved this goal within a few months.
—Sean Goetz, Director, Application Systems, CarMax
Implementing Azure OpenAI Service enabled CarMax to efficiently process massive amounts of automotive data, demonstrating Azure’s ability to handle complex industry-specific AI applications. This case highlights the potential of AI-based applications to transform traditional business models and improve customer experiences.
Ally: Powering Personalized Banking with Azure
Ally Bank is a digital financial institution that uses insights from Azure AI to help customers manage their finances more effectively while streamlining bank operations. By deploying intelligent applications through Azure, Ally introduced personalized banking services offering customized recommendations based on user behavior and financial patterns.
“The goal was to free up associates to really focus on the customer and support their customer-obsessed mentality.
—Wendy Dempsey, Executive Director of Customer Experience, Ally
This implementation demonstrates the power of Azure in supporting AI applications in the highly regulated banking sector, balancing innovation with security and compliance.
TomTom: Optimizing real-time mapping with Azure
TomTom, a global leader in location technology, turned to Azure to modernize its mapping processes. By creating intelligent, cloud-native applications with Azure AI and Azure Data Services, TomTom has improved the accuracy and speed of its real-time mapping services. The integration of Azure AI services enabled TomTom to efficiently process massive amounts of geospatial data, demonstrating Azure’s scalability and performance in processing data-intensive AI applications.
(Together with Azure) we developed TomTom Orbis Maps, which are built on TomTom’s AI-based map platform, and TomTom Digital Cockpit, a digital in-vehicle infotainment solution with cloud analytics.
—Paul Hesen, Vice President of Product Management, TomTom Group
With Azure, TomTom significantly increased the efficiency of its mapping operations, reducing the response time to driver queries from 12 seconds to just 2.5 seconds in a matter of months. This has enabled the company to deliver faster and more accurate location services to its global user base, increasing both productivity and customer confidence.
KPMG Australia: Audit automation with Azure AI
KPMG Australia used Azure AI to integrate intelligent applications into the audit process. Leveraging Azure’s natural language processing (NLP) capabilities, KPMG created a solution called KymChat that automates document analysis and improves data extraction. This transformation reduced the time required for audit tasks and improved both accuracy and efficiency.
We had experience with Azure Cosmos DB, which gave us confidence in its potential capabilities, but Microsoft’s support for vCore was critical to ensuring smooth operations as we scaled up the scale and capabilities of KymChat.
—Robert Finlayson, Senior Product Manager, KPMG Australia
With Azure AI, KPMG significantly improved the productivity of its auditors and freed them from tedious and repetitive tasks. This effort not only accelerated the audit process, but also increased the quality of information provided to clients and demonstrated the power of smart applications in professional services.
Manulife: Accelerate innovation with Azure Kubernetes
Manulife, a leading financial services group, leveraged Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to accelerate the development and deployment of innovative applications. By modernizing its legacy systems with Azure Kubernetes Service, Manulife was able to build cloud-native containerized applications that simplified operations and improved scalability.
With Azure, our customers can submit more documentation online, and we can then use document analytics to extract information and perform processing to accelerate workflows, ensure accuracy, and improve the user experience.
—Len van Greuning, Chief Information Officer, John Hancock (as Manulife is known in the United States)
Azure’s robust infrastructure has enabled Manulife to reduce operational complexity and increase speed to market, improving its ability to innovate in a competitive industry. Modernizing with AKS has enabled Manulife to remain agile and responsive, increase productivity and provide better service to its customers.
H&R Block: Improving document processing with Azure Form Recognizer
In an effort to revolutionize document processing, global tax services giant H&R Block turned to Azure Form Recognizer for a cutting-edge solution. By creating an intelligent application that automates the extraction of key data from tax documents, H&R Block reduces the time and manual effort associated with document handling. The AI-driven solution significantly increased accuracy while speeding up the overall tax preparation process.
Machine learning frees up the precious time we have with the client to really have richer conversations about their financial needs and aspirations, beyond the immediate task of securing the best tax result for the current year.
—Aditya Thadani, Vice President, H&R Block.
Through Azure Intelligent Services, H&R Block has modernized its operations, improved productivity and client service, and classified more than 30 million tax documents annually. This solution allowed the company to handle more clients with greater efficiency and provided a faster and more accurate tax filing experience.
Start innovating today with Azure AI Services
These customer success stories illustrate how upgrading with Azure can deliver better user experiences, drive innovation, and significantly increase operational efficiency in a secure, highly available environment. Write your own cloud application development success story and try Azure AI services for free on our homepage.