- Microsoft Frontier Company will integrate 6,000 engineers and specialists into customer organizations
- Backed by $2.5 billion in Microsoft funding, it will help customers transform with customized AI
- This is the “biggest” of its type, 2.5 times the value of Amazon’s alternative
Microsoft has launched a brand new division to extend its own AI consultants to customers’ businesses backed by a massive $2.5 billion investment.
The new Microsoft Frontier Company will integrate more than 6,000 specialists, AI engineers and technical experts directly into customer organizations to help build, implement and optimize their own AI strategies.
Microsoft described it as the “biggest, most talented, results-driven engineering organization in the industry” – the scheme comes days after Amazon announced a similar scheme backed by $1bn.
Microsoft launches forward-deployed engineer (FDE) program for AI
While the concept is similar to other FDE programs, Microsoft believes its Frontier Company will be different in that it adds extra layers of industry expertise, change management, continuous improvement and more, rather than simply driving to deliver AI ROI.
Microsoft Commercial Business CEO Judson Althoff emphasized the importance of intelligence and trust in tailoring an appropriate AI strategy for its customers. Intelligence’s role involves understanding a broad organizational context, workflows and processes, while trust is about governance, observability and accountability.
Early Frontier Company customers include LSEG and Unilever, and being an enterprise-focused solution, the company emphasized that proprietary data, workflows and more remain private to enterprises and don’t get used to train models.
Another big selling point for the “biggest” AI FDE scheme in the industry is that customers can pick and choose between models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and other open source alternatives to provide the best solution for any workload, rather than forcing companies to lock into a single tool.
Microsoft Frontier Company will be led by former president of Microsoft Asia, Rodrigo Kede Lima. “He has been at the forefront of helping customers and partners translate technology shifts into business outcomes and understanding how platform innovation, engineering and partner ecosystem collaboration come together to drive growth,” Althoff wrote.
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