Colonial First State (CFS) has followed a number of its financial services sector peers in securing a multi-year tech deal with Microsoft that will extend its access to the bigtech’s Azure cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
The five-year deal continues the wealth management firm’s already longstanding partnership with Microsoft, with the new contract establishing Microsoft Azure as CFS’s preferred cloud provider.
“The company already relies heavily on Azure to help power its data estate and security infrastructure, using tools such as Azure Data Factory, Microsoft Power BI, Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Sentinel,” Microsoft wrote in a statement confirming the new agreement.
The deal also extends CFS’s pilot deployment – commenced in January this year – of Microsoft’s Generative AI technologies, including its Microsoft 365-embedded Copilot system.
As well, CFS will also expand its use of the Azure OpenAI service, a tool enabling developers to leverage and customise one of Microsoft’s numerous large language models (LLMs), including GPT-3.5-Turbo and GPT-4 (for text outputs), DALL-E (for image generation), Whisper (for speech to text transcription), Babbage and Davinci.
CFS group executive of transformation, technology and operations Jeroen Buwalda said the extended partnership with the bigtech will enable the business “to identify new and innovative ways to deliver enhanced services for our members and the financial advisers we work with”.
CFS reports that around three-quarters of its workforce now has access to Copilot, representing more than 1,000 staff.
Among the case studies being explored include the use of Azure OpenAI Service to identify core themes and patterns in customer and adviser feedback (leveraging Microsoft Power Platform’s AI Builder, Power Automate and Power BI tools), as well as advanced chatbot capabilities to assist call centre staff and advisers in accessing information.
CFS follows a number of financial services peers in securing multi-year cloud and GenAI deals with Microsoft, including life insurer TAL, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac.
