Joacim Damgard
President, Microsoft Western Europe
Over the past few months, Microsoft’s AI tour has travelled across 9 countries in Western Europe; Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, connecting 16,000+ attendees and more than 200 partners with discussions about the future of AI and the transformative capability it is bringing.
Leaders emphasized the importance of having a clear vision, strategy, clarity, and commitment for AI to generate concrete impact. European organizations display varied levels of AI adoption, but uniformly agree that this transformation requires trust and responsible innovation, extending beyond the mere introduction of new tools.
Generative AI has rapidly evolved from a niche investment to a key focus for global decision-makers, driving AI transformation across various business sectors.
Organizations see an average return of $3.7 for every $1 spent on GenAI, but this requires careful planning and identifying areas where AI can make the most impact.
From our work with organizations around the world, we’ve seen there are four pillars of AI transformation:
1. Enriching employee experiences.
2. Reinventing customer engagement.
3. Reshaping business processes.
4. Bending the curve on innovation.
The AI Tours highlighted how AI is transforming work. Attendees noted that AI helps them focus on what matters, find information quickly, and reduce friction in their tasks. To that end, employees require AI skills and change management for successful AI use and implementation. Leaders need to foster a culture where experimentation is encouraged, and mistakes are safe to make.
Some companies, like Husqvarna Group from Sweden, are rising to the challenge and leading the way in their employees’ skilling and AI adoption. As Alysa Taylor, Chief Marketing Officer for Commercial Solutions at Microsoft, highlighted at the AI Tour in Stockholm, the company launched a pilot across seven business units, appointing AI champions to coach teams and share best practices. Through this approach, 300 employees began using Microsoft Copilot, gaining an average of 34 minutes back in their day and reporting a 77% increase in job satisfaction.
At Andritz Group, Jaakko Virevesi, Group Chief Information Officer, shared at the AI Tour in Vienna how they are using AI across functions to embed AI into tasks freeing employees to work more effectively. “We use AI-driven insights to inform our decisions and develop solutions that offer distinctive value for customers or improve internal processes.”
The takeaway was clear. Empowerment matters. When people feel supported to learn, try, and grow, AI becomes a tool not of disruption but an enabler.
A key theme of the AI Tour was how AI is enhancing customer engagement. Whether they are customers, citizens, or patients, AI is helping build better relationships by making experiences more personal and responsive.
In healthcare, AI is boosting frontline team efficiency. Another strong example came from Falck, a global leader in emergency response and healthcare services at the Copenhagen event. As Christian Baltzer, Group CFO, explained, Falck has embraced AI to enhance operations and transform the patient experience. By integrating AI-powered solutions, they have improved response times, optimised resource allocation, and given frontline staff more time to focus on patient care. Baltzer captured the impact when he said, “We needed to think about how we put technology into everything we do… using generative AI and large language models to improve our business, making sure frontliners like doctors have more time to be there for the patients.”
These stories emphasize how AI is reinventing customers experience, that service is about care, not just speed. Thoughtful use of AI can enrich important human moments and strengthen high-quality services, even in critical situations.
The AI Tour also highlighted that AI is now central to business operations, transforming core processes. CIOs and leaders noted that restructured workflows reduce manual tasks and improve decision-making, leading to better interdepartmental connectivity and significant improvements from minor adjustments.
And this shift isn’t limited to operational improvements. In Milan, Asha Sharma, Head of AI Platform Product at Microsoft, spoke about how some of Europe’s most established companies are making bold moves, like “Banca Generali integrating generative AI into their financial consulting” to support the bank’s strategic objectives, from enhancing the management of data assets, to supporting their customer management workflows and boosting the productivity of private bankers.
These partnerships are a sign that we are entering an era where AI is not just supporting business, it is becoming central to it.
During the AI Tours we also saw how organizations are leveraging AI to speed up innovation and product development, bringing new ideas to life at a scale not seen before.
At the city of Brussels, AI is helping enhance urban management and citizen services at an unprecedented scale. By leveraging AI-powered solutions, the city has transformed key areas, such as traffic management, contact center, waste collection, and and enhanced their productivity & the security of their communications. Régis Pitolet, Head of IT Digital Transformation, highlighted how AI enables proactive management of citizen services, reducing the need for office visits. The system handles now 340,000 office visits and serves 517,000 citizens, reducing office visits by 25%. It is a powerful example of how AI is reshaping public sector engagement and building smarter, more connected and efficient cities, ultimately improving the quality of life for residents and visitors alike.
The AI Tours demonstrated AI’s growing role in work processes, with agentic AI systems autonomously handling tasks, inquiries, scheduling, and workflows.
This shift streamlines operations, boosts collaboration, and reduces repetitive tasks, with AI integrated into finance, HR, marketing, and operations.
What stood out in these conversations was how accessible these capabilities have become. AI agents are no longer managed only by technical teams or limited to specific use cases. They are being embedded across organizations, supporting roles in finance, HR, marketing, operations, and beyond. And they are easy to create.
“Creating an agent is as simple as making a word document or PowerPoint” – Annie Pearl – CVP and GM, Azure Experiences and Ecosystems.
Across industries and sectors, the impact of agentic AI is already showing.
One thing that really stood out in the keynotes, the panel discussions and in conversations with partners and customers was the crucial role that trust plays in AI adoption. Central to this is having responsible AI practices and strong cybersecurity foundations.
Vasu Jakkal, CVP, Microsoft Security, put it perfectly when she said, “For AI to deliver on its promise and potential, we need to start with security”.
Ensuring transparency in AI decisions, maintaining cybersecurity measures, and complying with regulations are critical steps. Businesses must manage data security, usage, and vulnerabilities while responsibly handling risks to foster safe AI innovation.
Building confidence involves more than threat defense; it requires trust in technology for adoption, visibility for governance, and safeguards to prevent new problems. Security must be integrated into AI from the start. Organizations need tools to monitor AI usage, protect data, and anticipate attacks, fostering safe innovation.
Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative, launched in 2023, aims to enhance security standards with 34,000 engineers focused on secure design, operations, and governance. Businesses are eager but cautious, asking strategic questions about control, responsibility, and resilience. Trust is crucial not just for security, but for business success.
Successful AI adoption requires new skills but also a cultural shift. At the Copenhagen leg of the AI tour, leaders from across the country shared their experiences on fostering open dialogue and experimentation to convert implementation of AI tools into widespread AI adoption. Importantly, leading by example and allowing teams to explore AI tools and experiment is key.
One of the most impactful quotes came from Jens Zerbst, Chief Information Officer of Vattenfall, at the AI Tour in Stockholm who said: “If you ask me what the most important thing is, it’s that we understand AI, we can judge the risks, and we can handle them. That’s why we need to skill everybody, not just the technical experts”.
The fastest advancing AI organizations have leaders who promote a learning culture and support experimentation.
Want to find out more about the AI Tour in Western Europe? Check out the AI Tour Recap video here.
Leaders worldwide are now considering how AI will affect their organizations and want to anticipate the future of AI. All we can say for sure is that skilling will be crucial. As AI is integrated into all business areas, decision-makers must equip both their workforces and themselves with AI Skills and expertise on the technology and its potential impact.
Learn how to develop AI skills for yourself and your business here:
NIS2 is Europe’s comprehensive blueprint for cybersecurity resilience for all organizations that support critical infrastructure across 18 sectors including energy, finance, healthcare, transportation, manufacturing and more. In just six months’ time, 180,000 organizations involved in this sector will need to ensure they comply, or face potentially stiff penalties and disruption to their operations. The […]
Mike Hughes
Business Group Director, Security at Microsoft Western Europe
