In order to provide generative AI, digital, enterprise, and cloud services to over 300 million organisations and consumers throughout its European and African markets, Vodafone and Microsoft have reached a 10-year partnership agreement.
The British corporation announced that it will replace physical data centres with more affordable and scalable Azure cloud services, as well as invest $1.5 billion in customer-focused AI created with Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI and Copilot technologies.
Microsoft will then assist in growing Vodafone’s mobile banking platform in Africa and convert into an equity investor in the managed Internet of Things (IoT) platform when it is spun out as a separate company by April.
Margherita Della Valle, the CEO of Vodafone, is under pressure to get the company back to profit growth and has seen an opportunity to assist businesses in digitizing, in May, mentioning that the addressable market had a value of 140 billion euros.
“Accelerate the digital transformation of our business customers, particularly small and medium-sized companies,” she stated, referring to the agreement she made with Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft.
According to Luka Mucic, Chief Financial Officer of Vodafone, Microsoft’s leadership in artificial intelligence, supported by its collaboration with OpenAI, will revolutionise the telco’s consumer services.
“That’s the part that is really going to catch every single one of our customers,” he stated on Tuesday, going on to say that the TOBi chatbot, powered by Microsoft AI, would respond to inquiries with greater consistency and intelligence.
