Vodafone has teamed up with Microsoft for a $1.5 billion AI deal.
The telecommunications company will be working with tech giant Microsoft in what has been called a "strategic" move, using artificial intelligence to "transform " customer experience.
Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group chief executive, said: “Today, Vodafone has made a bold commitment to the digital future of Europe and Africa. This unique strategic partnership with Microsoft will accelerate the digital transformation of our business customers, particularly small and medium-sized companies, and step up the quality of customer experience for consumers.”
Meanwhile, Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft, said the company was "delighted" at the news
He said: "This new generation of AI will unlock massive new opportunities for every organization and every industry around the world.We are delighted that together with Vodafone we will apply the latest cloud and AI technology to enhance the customer experience of hundreds of millions of people and businesses across Africa and Europe, build new products and services, and accelerate the company’s transition to the cloud."
In a blog post, Microsoft explained that the key features of the partnership included Generative AI to"increase customer satisfaction", Scaling IoT (Internet of Things) which will help connect 175 million devices worldwide, Africa digital acceleration to "the launch of new cloud-native applications", Enterprise growth to help "business customers to deploy Microsoft’s cloud-based services at pace with low adoption and running cost" and Cloud transformation, which will help "improve its responsiveness to customers".
