Cognizant-Microsoft partnership: Prestigious awards, generative AI focus mark eventful first half of 2024

Cognizant's strategic partnership with Microsoft is defined by more than two decades of co-innovation and collaboration. As one of Microsoft's global partners, Cognizant consistently demonstrates its commitment to delivering business value to enterprise clients, grounded in decades of industry experience and unique intellectual property, powered by the Microsoft Cloud.

"Cognizant's enduring partnership with Microsoft has produced decades of co-innovation, delivering exceptional value to clients around the world. This would not be possible without the expertise and contributions of our more than 20,000 certified consultants," said Sandra Notardonato, SVP Alliances and Partnerships, Cognizant. "While we continue to focus on modernizing businesses, driving operational efficiencies and delivering transformative outcomes, we are also extending our portfolio of services and solutions in game-changing new areas like generative AI through partnerships with companies like Microsoft."

In the first six months of 2024, Cognizant and Microsoft achieved several important milestones, expanding and strengthening the partnership to drive business transformation across industries, using artificial intelligence, including generative AI. The following highlights are among the most notable achievements of our collaboration in 2024 to-date:

• In January, Cognizant introduced the BlueBolt Innovation Assistant, a Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service powered tool designed to help Cognizant associates unlock innovation in their day-to-day work by drawing on years of knowledge and solutions developed by their peers. Cognizant associates have implemented more than 30,000 client-impacting ideas through Bluebolt since the program's launch in April, 2023. Read more about the Bluebolt Innovation Assistant in a blog by Alexis Samuel, Cognizant's SVP of Delivery Excellence and in coverage by CIO Magazine.
  
• In March, Cognizant and Microsoft collaborated to incorporate generative AI into the realm of healthcare administration. This initiative aims to help improve operational efficiency and patient services via the TriZetto platform, supported by Azure OpenAI Service.
  
• Also in March, we debuted Cognizant Skygrade^TM for Microsoft Azure, marking the launch of a new cloud transformation service. This optimized version of Skygrade allows for the development of modern applications, deployable across public and hybrid environments to boost benefits from investments in Azure.
  
• In April, Cognizant and Microsoft announced a far-reaching global partnership expansion focused on increasing enterprise adoption of generative AI and Copilot For Microsoft 365 to drive industry transformation. Cognizant is deploying Copilot for Microsoft 365 internally, across all departments. Cognizant is also working to deploy Copilot for Microsoft 365 to one million client end-users. In addition, through Cognizant's Synapse skilling platform, Cognizant will train 75,000 developers on Github Copilot.
  
• In June, Cognizant received two Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards, including the 2024 global GSI Growth Champion award, its first global recognition, and the U.S. Country Partner of the Year award for demonstrating innovation and successfully delivering customer solutions using the Microsoft Cloud and AI services. Additionally, Cognizant was a finalist in the categories of Media and Telecommunications, Intelligent Automation and Global Systems Integrator (GSI).

"The long-standing Cognizant and Microsoft partnership transforms business operations and enhances employee experiences across industries, delivering new value," says Stephen Boyle, Global Leader, GSI, ESI and Advisory Partners at Microsoft. "As we harness generative AI to build industry-leading solutions and AI services at scale, together, we will lead the way into a promising and vibrant future, ready to deliver new innovation for customers."

For more information on Cognizant's partnership with Microsoft, and for the Microsoft Business Group, Cognizant's team of specialized Microsoft experts, platforms, offerings and solutions, visit this page.