Cognizant, Microsoft announce partnership to expand adoption of GenAI

Nasdaq-listed IT services firm Cognizant and Microsoft today announced an expanded partnership to drive the adoption of generative AI among enterprises.

As part of the partnership, Cognizant purchased 25,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot seats for Cognizant associates, along with 500 Sales Copilot seats and 500 Services Copilot seats to enhance productivity, streamline workflows, and transform customer experiences.

In addition, Cognizant will work to deploy Microsoft 365 Copilot to a million users within their global 2,000 clients and across 11 industries. Through Cognizant’s Synapse skilling program, 35,000 Cognizant developers have been trained on GitHub Copilot, with an additional 40,000 developers slated to receive training.

"Generative AI can be a game-changer for virtually every business in every industry, opening up new possibilities for innovation, efficiency, and growth,” said Ravi Kumar S, Chief Executive Officer, Cognizant.

He further added: “That’s why we are investing $1 billion in generative AI over the next three years and leading the development of new research to explore its potential for our clients, their employees, and end customers."

AI is expected to infuse $1 trillion into the US economy over the next ten years.

“Our expanded partnership with Cognizant will help organizations harness generative AI to transform business operations, enhance employee experiences, and deliver new value for customers,” said Judson Althoff, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at Microsoft. “By combining Cognizant’s industry expertise with Microsoft’s Copilot capabilities—including Copilot for Microsoft 365 and GitHub Copilot—we will help drive AI adoption and innovation for millions of users across its network.”

To take advantage of these opportunities, Cognizant and Microsoft will collaborate to deliver industry-specific solutions, using Copilot Studio, a platform that allows users to create and customize their own industry-and-business-function specific Copilots, leveraging generative AI large language models, business applications, and enterprise data. Beyond the healthcare industry, Cognizant and Microsoft will prioritize applications across industries such as retail and consumer goods, financial services, life sciences, manufacturing, and communications and media.