Cognizant partners with Microsoft to boost GenAI, copilot adoption

American IT firm Cognizant on Monday said it has partnered with Microsoft Corporation to expand the reach of the latter's generative AI and copilots, enhance employee experiences, and accelerate cross-industry innovation.

The partnership will use Microsoft Copilot and Cognizant's advisory and digital transformation services to help employees and enterprise customers operationalise generative AI and realise strategic business transformation, a company statement said.

The company said it will contribute to the projected $1 trillion that AI is expected to inject into the US GDP over the next 10 years.

It added that the partnership will also benefit India.

"AI is expected to add $450-500 billion to India's GDP by 2025, accounting for 10 per cent of the country's $5 trillion GDP target," it said.

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, and will work to deploy Microsoft 365 Copilot to a million users within their 2,000 global clients.

"Our expanded partnership with Cognizant will help organisations 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.