Microsoft Transforms Core IT with Generative AI
Microsoft is experiencing a major shift in core IT, driven by the integration of generative AI. Microsoft Digital, the company’s IT organization, is at the forefront of this transformation, using AI to re-evaluate and modernize its entire IT infrastructure.
“We’ve crossed an important threshold with AI,” says Mark Sherwood, vice president of Infrastructure and Engineering Services within Microsoft Digital. “We’re now using it to transform all our core IT services, to make everything we do more efficient, and secure.” Sherwood and his team oversee the core IT services, a massive enterprise IT system supporting Microsoft’s global operations.
Microsoft’s IT environment is exceptionally broad, composed of hundreds of thousands of PCs, laptops, conference rooms, IoT sensors, and personal devices. This extensive network depends heavily on robust network connectivity and security, providing employees with seamless access to crucial tools and services.
It is clear that AI provides amazing value to our IT infrastructure. “It’s a fascinating time to be working in IT,” Sherwood remarks. “We’re using AI across all of our services, and now we get to take that investment to the next level. Now it’s all about seeing what we can do with it.”
Aligning IT Infrastructure Innovation with a Broader Vision
The strategy for AI transformation in core IT infrastructure is a key component of Microsoft Digital’s broader vision for AI. “The potential for transformation through AI is nearly limitless,” says Natalie D’Hers, corporate vice president of Microsoft Digital. “We’re evaluating every service in our portfolio to consider how AI can improve outcomes, lower costs, and create a sustained competitive advantage for Microsoft and for our customers.”
Microsoft prioritizes employee experience, and AI will be vital in molding the future of how Microsoft staff interacts with customers, the organization, and each other.
Transforming and Securing Network and Infrastructure
AI holds tremendous potential across Microsoft Digital. Benefits related to AI are particularly evident in IT infrastructure, specifically within areas such as device management, network infrastructure, tenant management, security, and IT support experience.
Security
Security is non-negotiable for transformation to occur. Effective security controls and governance provide the secure foundation for engineering teams to build solutions, especially as AI is integrated into services and solutions. Securing networks and endpoints is essential. Zero Trust Networking efforts across IT infrastructure provide critical protection against threats to network security, and AI will enhance these areas in both cloud and on-premises environments.
AI-based device assignment simplifies network classification and improves risk-based isolation, which isolates risky devices and reduces unwanted network movement. Access controls are being automated for both wired and wireless networks to bolster security. AI-infused processes for analyzing device vulnerabilities, detecting unusual firewall traffic, and diagnosing network incidents will play a crucial role in the continuing shift towards the internet as the primary network transport. Further, AI-supplemented capabilities in Microsoft 365’s multi-tenant organization feature should aid in meeting evolving network segmentation requirements by maintaining tenant separation and enabling secure cross-tenant collaboration when needed. AI will also manage third-party app access, and transform the understanding of user interactions with applications on managed devices or SaaS platforms. By accurately capturing third-party app usage and needs, and leveraging AI to determine user access, efficiency will increase and costs will drop.
Intelligent Infrastructure
Software-defined networking and coding are already changing the way Microsoft approaches networking. AI dramatically amplifies the benefits. AI allows the building of data-driven intelligence into network infrastructure, engineering, and operations.
AI-driven processes help eliminate configuration drift, adhere to security policies, lower operator errors, and respond promptly to changing business needs. AI-driven automation is also deployed to simplify resource management and deployment, leveraging the flexibility provided by software-defined networking and infrastructure as code. AI will also assist with generating code designs, defining and managing network configurations, managing deployments, conducting pre- and post-deployment verifications, and assisting with ongoing change management.
Near real-time streaming telemetry from network devices provides the foundation for operation guidance and continuous improvement. Network self-healing capabilities are improved by using AI to detect and fix network issues. This creates a more reliable, resilient, and elastic network environment, decreasing human intervention and preventing errors.
One project currently in progress is an AI-based assistant application for direct engineering teams. This app mines and analyzes the current network infrastructure catalog, providing capabilities which complement engineers’ expertise in the field. This assistant application will improve the productivity and mitigation time for network infrastructure incidents. The AI component is trained on over 200,000 incidents for anomaly detection and predictive analytics. It is expected that this will lead to reduced network outages and maintenance costs.
Device Management
With over a million interconnected devices, AI-powered capabilities will significantly benefit Microsoft’s current device management practices. Intelligent device recommendations ensure that employees have the best tools to do their jobs. AI is also built into a centralized device lifecycle management tool to streamline the procurement, tracking, and responsible recycling of devices.
AI-powered predictive maintenance and intelligent troubleshooting are designed to reduce device-related issues. AI-enabled device maintenance schedules and tasks automate device management and reduce the burden on IT help desks. This is done by addressing device problems before they cause issues for users, thus reducing device-related helpdesk incidents.
AI is being used to generate device insights by analyzing a large set of signals, including device configurations, network traffic, vulnerabilities, and user behavior. By analyzing the data from helpdesk tickets and alerts, engineers can address various situations. These insights will inform decisions across the device management portfolio, including device replacement, software updates, and capacity increases. Additionally, AI-automated IoT device registration will create efficient IoT device management, tracking, and security for the over 100,000 connected devices on the corporate network. AI and machine learning will also help to perform aggregated meetings and call data for device monitoring across personal devices, Microsoft Teams meeting rooms, networks, IoT devices, and Microsoft 365 to improve and safeguard the user experience.
Tenant Management
Microsoft’s cloud tenants in Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and the Power Platform are among the largest and most complex implementations of those platforms. Its internal implementation contains more than:
- 205,000 Microsoft Teams
- 534,000 SharePoint sites
- 430,00 Microsoft Exchange mailboxes
- 93,00 Power Apps
- 5,000 Viva Engage communities
- 25,000 Microsoft Azure subscriptions
AI can improve how it is managed. In tenants of this size, unmanaged assets lead to unnecessary costs, adding to the need for automated asset management. Asset compliance and lifecycle management processes include an AI-powered compliance assistant, which notifies both tenant users and owners. This tool also recommends assets for deletion, and identifies high-risk areas. Using the assistant, tenant administrators get an all-up view of compliance status and can investigate and resolve issues more thoroughly. AI is also simplifying and streamlining license management. By adhering to stringent rules and regulations, complex access scenarios result across various countries and regions. AI is also bolstering its ability to detect and remediate non-compliant tenants.
IT Support
Generative AI will transform how Microsoft employees interact with support services. By interacting with Microsoft Support services in a complex, global hybrid environment, the self-help solution leverages Microsoft Azure OpenAI. The solution supports contextual and human-like conversation in the employee’s local language. Chat and incident summarization tools use AI to provide incident summaries and context when assisted support is needed. IT support systems are being infused with AI capabilities for many reasons. AI will be used to forecast support requirements, and proactively check the health of devices in order to further reduce issues.
Transforming IT Infrastructure as ‘Customer Zero’
As Customer Zero for Microsoft, new products and capabilities are piloted and deployed within the company’s IT infrastructure before external release. Microsoft’s scale, knowledge of its products and services, helps it envision connected experiences across large enterprises. Solutions are then engineered on top of the product platforms. AI helps improve the role as Customer Zero by accelerating insights and improving time-to-value.
AI is used to capture, review, analyze, and report on crucial and actionable insights from the Customer Zero experience. Processes, regulatory compliance, security reviews, and deployment practices are also being redeveloped within the Customer Zero environment, with AI playing a central role.
Looking Forward: The Future with AI
It is almost impossible to envision the future of corporate IT infrastructure without AI. Planning for AI within Microsoft’s infrastructure is constantly evolving. Microsoft aims to be a catalyst for innovation, and are committed to innovating with AI to streamline IT operations.
As Sherwood notes, “We will continue to infuse AI into every dimension of our enterprise portfolio. We’ll continue to identify new opportunities for building AI-powered applications and services that improve how we deliver IT services to the company.”
By showcasing its progress on AI, Microsoft aims to transform its approach to AI internally and to spark similar transformation across the IT sector.
Mark Sherwood (left to right), Pete Apple, Senthil Selvaraj, and Phil Suver were part of the team incorporating AI into Microsoft Digital’s vision for core IT.
