Microsoft has unveiled the Microsoft Frontier Company, a new operating business focused on delivering “frontier transformation” through AI for Microsoft’s customers around the world. Microsoft Frontier Company launches with a $2.5 billion investment from Microsoft and 6,000 industry and engineering experts who will be embedded with customers to co-design, co-innovate, deploy, and continuously improve their AI systems, Judson Althoff, CEO of Microsoft Commercial Business, said in a July 2 blog post announcing the new company.
Microsoft Frontier Company will provide a unique combination of skills that include deep industry knowledge, change management and continuous improvement experience, and enterprise-grade AI engineering expertise, Althoff said. Companies as part of the effort are being encouraged to establish an intelligence platform so their “unique IQ” — their proprietary data, expertise, workflows, and decision-making processes — compounds over time from within, using their choice of models to build AI solutions and workflows. At the same time, they need a trusted platform that allows them to observe, govern, manage, and secure AI solutions across every layer of the technology stack, Althoff said.
AI engineering expertise and deep industry knowledge are required to build a system that acts as a continuous loop of improvement between these two platforms. This is what Microsoft Frontier Company was built to do, Althoff said.