Microsoft‘s AI assistant reshapes customer experience while driving engagement

Business customers expect to find information online quickly and easily—but that can be challenging on sites with extensive offerings. Even Microsoft, a global leader in cloud services, recognized the need to better guide customers looking for information on Azure.com. 

Hunting for hard-to-find information

With more than 400 product and service pages on Azure.com, customers often struggled to find the specific information they needed. They frequently turned to the chatbot for live chats with sales representatives, asking for help with website navigation, product details, or technical support. “People would reach out to the sales reps about everything, including non-sales questions, which is not the best use of the sales reps’ time,” says Aditya Bajaj, Senior Technical Program Manager at Microsoft.

The Cloud Marketing team needed a low-code, scalable solution that would help guide and connect customers to the information they need more quickly and efficiently.  

Transforming customer engagement with generative AI

To simplify navigation on Azure.com, the team built a custom AI assistant using Microsoft Copilot Studio and Power Platform. Copilot Studio powers the chat interface, trains the AI, and defines topics, while Power Automate connects it to Bing for trusted data sourcing. This ensures the AI assistant stays within Microsoft.com, reducing the risk of overreach.

“The AI assistant has been pivotal in reducing distractions for our sales teams and helping users navigate complex sites,” says Bajaj. “Tools like Copilot Studio make it easier to scale solutions like this across multiple properties.”

The AI assistant offers thoughtful follow-up prompts, helping customers find what they need on their own before engaging with sales. The result is a generative AI assistant that answers customer queries in natural language, provides reliable links, and seamlessly involves sales reps when additional expertise is helpful. “With a generative AI–based assistant, you simply provide a data source and let AI do its magic,” Bajaj explains. By relying on public data from trusted sources, the solution minimizes risks of exposing confidential information.

Boosting engagement through a better experience

The AI assistant has improved the customer experience, making it faster and easier to find information, boosting engagement, and simplifying the process of reaching confident business decisions—all without compromising other key metrics. “With Copilot Studio, we built the AI assistant to go beyond traditional search. Instead of just pointing users to documents, it delivers the exact piece of information they need, right when they need it,” says Brian Costea, Senior Director, Web Operations at Microsoft.

“The AI assistant has been fantastic in providing valuable insights into customers’ most common questions and themes, empowering our team to better understand and meet their needs with enthusiasm and precision,” says Stacy Drulard, Director of Web Marketing at Microsoft. By analyzing user queries, the AI assistant highlights content gaps and areas for improvement, enabling teams to refine their content and ensure the website is comprehensive and intuitive.

Azure.com visitors who used the AI assistant showed:*

• 70% more pages visited per session

• 21.5% increase in conversion rates

Extending the benefits to even more customers

Building on this momentum, the team expanded AI assistants to ten additional Microsoft product sites at a pace of two per week, aiming for a scalable platform across Microsoft.com. The speed of deployment highlights the power of low-code/no-code tools like Copilot Studio and Power Automate, which allow rapid launches without significant technical overhead. “Copilot Studio and Power Platform make it easy to create a low-code solution scalable across Microsoft properties without custom development,” says Costea.

To ensure that this rapid deployment aligns with responsible AI standards, the team monitors a “do no harm” KPI to ensure customer satisfaction and existing business metrics are not negatively impacted during deployment, aligning with responsible AI standards. 

Future plans include further enhancing the AI assistant’s functionality, such as improving integrations and capabilities for even more seamless user experiences.

This initiative underscores Microsoft’s commitment to solving real-world problems with cutting-edge technology. The ease of deployment and measurable impact demonstrate that with Microsoft’s low-code tools, any organization can unlock transformative results.

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*Internal Microsoft marketing team data. June–Sept. 2024. Conversion means initiating the free account sign-up process on Azure.com.