The promise of technology to advance and meaningfully improve people’s lives has never been greater. That is why we are incredibly excited that Microsoft + Nuance have joined forces as one organization.  As a pioneer in conversational AI and ambient intelligence, Nuance combines the power of cutting-edge technology and deep domain expertise across an array of industries – including healthcare, financial services, telecommunications, retail, among others – to design innovative solutions that amplify human intelligence and revolutionize how people interact with technology, so they can be their best selves. Nuance’s world-class technology has earned them a market-leading reputation as more than 77% of U.S. hospitals and 550,000 healthcare clinicians worldwide, as well as 19 out of 20 of the world’s top financial institutions, and 85% of the Fortune 100 trust their solutions to deliver superior outcomes every day — whether it’s clinical documentation that writes itself to help reduce physician burnout by up to 70%, cloud-based medical imaging solutions that reduce unnecessary duplicate imaging scans by 40%, voice and behavioral biometrics capabilities that save organizations billions of dollars in fraud savings, or digital engagement solutions that result in an 85% increase in customer satisfaction.

Now, united by our shared purpose, Microsoft + Nuance will work together to build upon these latest AI, digital and cloud advancements to create solutions that transform how we – as global citizens – work, shop, bank, engage and receive care. With a steadfast focus on delivering world-class services, we will continue to focus on helping our customers solve their biggest challenges, accelerate their business outcomes and amplify their impact.

United by a bold vision and cutting-edge innovation

One of the driving forces that brought Microsoft + Nuance together is our bold vision and shared passion for creating assistive technologies that seamlessly integrate into the way people work, connect with one another and engage with the digital world around them. The combination of our longstanding partnership, the camaraderie and alignment between our teams, and the complementary nature of our cutting-edge portfolios, have made it abundantly clear that Microsoft + Nuance are better together.

We are uniting at a time when the industries we serve are facing the pressures of rapid digital transformation, and conversational AI, ambient intelligence and secure cloud connectivity are essential to solving their most pressing challenges. By combining Nuance’s best-in-class conversational AI and ambient intelligence, which have been developed with years of industry knowledge and domain-specific expertise, with Microsoft’s best-in-class cloud infrastructure renowned for its global scale, world-class security, powerful compute capabilities, and first-of-their-kind industry-specific clouds, we will be able to deliver even better solutions that help our customers achieve important outcomes and redefine success.

Solving industries’ biggest challenges

Equally important is our commitment to listening to and deeply understanding our customers’ specific needs and using their guidance and feedback to continually evolve our solutions and technologies to deliver the best experiences and outcomes. Now, more than ever, organizations around the world are facing unprecedented and evolving headwinds, ranging from intensified consumer expectations and security threats, to staffing shortages, to all-time high levels of clinician burnout in healthcare.  Together, and in partnership with our customers, Microsoft + Nuance will advance the state of the art to address these pressing issues and create seamless digital experiences that drive meaningful outcomes.

For instance, Microsoft’s recent Work Trend Index Special Report found that many frontline healthcare workers are at an inflection point and are considering a job change, a leading indication that the industry could soon be facing critical experience gaps and staffing shortages. However, results also show that nearly half (48%) of respondents said that better tech on the job would significantly help ease the continuously mounting pressures. Microsoft + Nuance are uniquely positioned to address these issues. Our technologies are designed to improve patient experiences and support for clinicians with automated clinical documentation, greater flexibility in delivering care through telehealth applications, and advanced solutions designed for earlier detection and treatment of disease. Together, we will bridge silos of healthcare data and connect imaging stakeholders in an effort to facilitate the use of AI to inform precision diagnostics and therapeutics, increase physician and care team efficiency and lower overall healthcare costs.

Similarly, organizations in financial services, telecommunications, retail, healthcare and other industries must meet increasingly heightened expectations for effortless, personalized experiences while managing agent efficiency, attrition and cost controls. Uniting our companies allows us to bring together Nuance’s contact center solutions and extensive expertise supporting leading enterprises with Microsoft technologies, such as Dynamics 365 Customer Service, and the scale and security of the Microsoft Cloud. The result will be a world-class platform, deep vertical intelligence and expertise, and an extensive partner ecosystem that are designed to positively transform the future of customer engagement and patient care. With this powerful combination, we will set a new vision for the modern customer engagement center, where we are able to enhance and automate all touchpoints across the customer journey, all while creating personalized experiences, improving agent productivity, safeguarding customer interactions, and optimizing agile operations to lower costs, increase revenue, facilitate customer acquisition and prevent fraud.

Accelerating business outcomes

Technology is only as good as the outcomes it delivers, and the true power of AI lies in its ability to accelerate meaningful results. Microsoft + Nuance will continue to deliver solutions with powerful, outcomes-focused AI and robust security that help shorten time to market, enhance accuracy, automate administrative tasks and amplify our customers’ ability to help others. In fact, we’ve been successfully using this model since 2019, with our joint work to revolutionize the patient-physician experience with the Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience (Nuance DAX). Health systems in the U.S. today are now leveraging Nuance DAX to dramatically reduce clinicians’ administrative workloads, allowing them to spend more time with patients and less time on documentation, which can ultimately produce better patient and financial outcomes. But truly, this is just the beginning: We are committed to innovating new and cutting-edge AI solutions that help make healthcare more personal, affordable, effective and accessible, while also continuing to improve the patient and clinician experience.

“The Nuance DAX solution will truly transform how our physicians engage with patients. It addresses the industry-wide problem of physician burnout from administrative overload while increasing both physician and patient satisfaction. DAX is a true differentiator and one that we are certain will draw top talent to our organization.” – Dr. Snehal V. Gandhi, Medical Director, Division of Hospital Medicine, Department of Medicine and VP of Medical Informatics & Care Delivery Innovation, Cooper University Health Care

“I can now, for just about any visit, walk into an exam room, sit down, turn on DAX, and then literally sit back, look my patients in the eye and have a meaningful conversation.” – Lance Owens, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer, University of Michigan Health-West

We will also continue to help organizations in financial services, telco, retail, and other industries transform their consumer experiences and turn the digital contact center of the future into an everyday reality. By combining our state-of-the-art biometric security, virtual assistants, chatbots, intelligent omnichannel customer and agent engagement solutions, and industry-specific cloud platforms, we will help organizations stay on the forefront of customer experience — empowering consumers and brands alike, with intelligence from first contact to resolution, all while increasing revenue and customer satisfaction, and lowering costs.

Amplifying impact

Innovation is at the heart of how we operate and create positive outcomes for our customers. We know that it is critical that technology drives real-world outcomes and positively amplifies organizations’ impact and their ability to improve the lives of others. We also know that innovative solutions become truly powerful when they scale and are accessible anytime, anywhere on a secure and compliant platform — and this is an area that we are very excited about as we look ahead. Microsoft + Nuance, along with our expansive network of partners, are a force multiplier and by working together we will be able to deliver even better outcomes for those we serve. Side-by-side, we will continue to relentlessly pursue technological advancements that produce lasting and scalable benefits for our customers, and we will invest in solutions and programs that enhance our partners’ capabilities and strengths. But these aren’t just words: we are already using input from our customers and partners to inform our strategic plans and to evaluate how our combined portfolio and technologies can help them amplify their impact even more.

An important aspect of helping our customers and partners amplify their impact is through reliable, trustworthy and personalized service and support. Rest assured we remain fiercely committed to maintaining continuity of service and the same customer touchpoints. Additionally, we will continue to uphold our high standards around data privacy, security and compliance. Both of our organizations have prided ourselves on these shared values and philosophies, and we will continue to uphold them now and in the future.

Our teams are the bedrock of our success

While the opportunity ahead of us is both exciting and expansive, none of this will be possible without bringing our incredibly talented, passionate, and dedicated employees together. Both Microsoft + Nuance believe in the power of culture as an accelerant for innovation. And when it comes to our vision, culture and values, we have significant alignment. We will continue to advance our shared purpose by thinking big, staying focused on our customers, striving for excellence in all we do and learning from one another and those we serve. By combining our knowledge and insights to expand the art of the possible, we can forever change and improve the way people interact with one another and the digital world around them.

Microsoft + Nuance share a bold, powerful and transformative vision: to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Today, we begin the journey to bring that vision into reality, combining Nuance’s best-in-class conversational AI and ambient intelligence with the scale and security of the Microsoft Cloud. Together, we will put advanced AI solutions into the hands of professionals everywhere to drive better decision-making, create more meaningful connections and help produce tangible, lasting outcomes.

The post Microsoft + Nuance: Better together to transform business and healthcare outcomes with AI appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.