Vodafone announces a 10-year $1.6 bn deal with Microsoft to introduce genAI, cloud services

Vodafone has announced a 10-year partnership with Microsoft to introduce AI, digital, enterprise and cloud services to over 300 million businesses and consumers in Europe and Africa. Vodafone will invest $1.5 billion in customer-focused AI developed with Microsoft's Azure OpenAI and Copilot technologies. The telecom plans to replace physical data centres with cheaper and scalable Azure cloud services.

In exchange, Microsoft will become an equity investor in Vodafone's managed IoT platform, due for standalone business status by April 2024. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote on X, “We're delighted to partner with Vodafone Group to apply the latest cloud and AI technology to enhance the customer experience for hundreds of millions of people and businesses across Africa and Europe.”

We're delighted to partner with @VodafoneGroup to apply the latest cloud and AI technology to enhance the customer experience for hundreds of millions of people and businesses across Africa and Europe. https://t.co/ZAwQQQEUlS

Vodafone's Chief Financial Officer Luka Mucic said Microsoft's leadership in AI, underpinned by its OpenAI partnership, would transform the telecom's customer services.

"That's the part that is really going to catch each and every one of our customers," he said on Tuesday, adding that a Microsoft AI-underpinned TOBi chatbot would provide more consistent and intelligent responses to queries.

Microsoft's Chief Commercial Officer Judson Althoff said Vodafone's strength in IoT and financial services were strategically important. He stated, “The IoT assets are critical in helping us address the sustainability needs of so many of our customers in hard-to-abate sectors.”

In other news, Microsoft has rolled out CoPilot Pro, a subscription service by Microsoft that offers access to the latest and most advanced AI products from the software giant. This new subscription brings AI benefits to users across various Microsoft applications and is now available to users in India.

Users in India can get access to CoPilot Pro for a monthly fee of Rs 2,000.00. As part of the service, subscribers gain priority access to the latest AI models, GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo, ensuring accelerated performance even during peak times. The service is integrated with Microsoft 365 apps, including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

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