Azure Partner Updates: Automotive AI; Insurance platform; AI for tax

STELLA collaborates with Microsoft on automotive AI, Vietnamese insurer goes live with Sapiens platform on Azure, and H&R Block leverages Azure in its day-to-day operations.

STELLA collaborates with Microsoft on automotive AI

STELLA Automotive AI, a Tampa-based technology company, announced a collaboration with Microsoft to integrate its portfolio with Azure OpenAI Service. Through the collaboration, STELLA hopes to expand the capabilities of its digital voice assistant.

Currently, STELLA has integrations with dealer management systems, financial and insurance platforms, as well as scheduler and CRM systems. It plans to boost voice interactions and aim for a more holistic user experience.

"Generative AI has the potential to fundamentally change the way OEMs and dealers interact with customers through natural language. With STELLA AI's deep automotive expertise and Microsoft AI and cloud leadership, we are well positioned to support automakers in creating highly differentiated customer experiences," stated Dominik Wee, Corporate Vice President, Manufacturing and Mobility at Microsoft.

Vietnamese insurer goes live with Sapiens platform on Azure

OPES Digital Insurance, a large digital insurance provider in Vietnam, has gone live with the Sapiens International Corporation IDITSuite for Property & Casualty and Sapiens Intelligence, in a bid to modernize its property and casualty operations.

Launched in 2018, OPES chose Sapiens in an effort to achieve product configuration and prepare for audit risks. The new platform includes AI capabilities for customer acquisition, billing, claims, and renewals.

"Sapiens empowered our digital transformation by modernizing our core processes with a seamless, turnkey solution. Sapiens' rich functionalities, value-added roadmap and systems improvements enable us to scale in a timely and cost-efficient manner by delivering new products and services to our customers," stated Mr. Tung Dang, CEO of OPES.

H&R Block leverages Azure in its day-to-day operations

Microsoft shared insights about the ways that H&R Block, a large US-based tax prep company, uses Azure in its day-to-day operations. When Microsoft announced its FY24 Q4 earnings it indicated that there are now 53,000 Azure AI customers. H&R Block is no exception, offering customers its H&R Block Tax Assist tool. This generative AI experience uses Azure OpenAI Service on the back end to streamline the tax prep process for individuals.

Leveraging generative AI capabilities, Tax Assist can answer general questions about the tax code, provide dynamic free-form responses, and guide customers through deductions and credits. Currently, about 69 million customers are using Tax Assist.

“H&R Block has built a long-standing partnership with Microsoft starting with migration to Azure as a part of our broader digital transformation. As we considered platform partners for building the AI Tax Assist and AI Platforms more broadly, we indexed heavily on speed-to-market while ensuring we did it safely, responsibly, and honoring the trust our clients place in our brand every day. The capabilities of Azure OpenAI Service to enable responsible deployment of AI were critical in helping build confidence in this new solution and allowed us to deploy this new technology at scale to our clients early in our journey,” stated Alan Lowden, Chief Information Officer, H&R Block.