Vodafone and Microsoft have agreed a 10-year strategic partnership designed to bring generative AI, digital services and the cloud to more than 300 million businesses and consumers across Europe and Africa.
The partnership will transform Vodafone’s customer experience using Microsoft’s generative AI and Microsoft will adopt Vodafone’s fixed and mobile connectivity services.
Vodafone will invest $1.5 billion in cloud and customer-focused AI services during the partnership.
Microsoft also intends to invest in Vodafone’s managed IoT connectivity platform, which will become a separate, standalone business by April 2024.
Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group CEO, said: “This partnership will accelerate the digital transformation of our business customers, particularly SMEs, and step up the quality of customer experience for consumers.”
Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO at Microsoft , added: “Together with Vodafone we will apply the latest cloud and AI technology to build new products and services, and accelerate the company’s transition to the cloud.”