As businesses face mounting pressure to deliver seamless, personalized experiences while managing operational complexity, the need for leaders to rethink their business models is critical. 

To respond, Microsoft has introduced a transformative organizational blueprint: the Frontier Firm. This concept represents a new breed of enterprise – one that places AI at the core of its operations, blending human-AI chemistry to reshape productivity, customer engagement, and innovation.

The agentic AI opportunity is immense. A recent Capgemini Research Institute study highlighted that AI agents could generate around $450 billion in total economic value in the 14 countries surveyed by 2028 (Source: Rise of agentic AI – Capgemini).

What is a Frontier Firm?

Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index (Source: 2025: The year the Frontier Firm is born), defines a Frontier Firm by its ability to:
– Deploy AI organization-wide
– Operate with hybrid teams of humans and intelligent agents
– Use AI to close the capacity gap between business demands and human limitations
– Embrace an “agent boss” mindset, where employees orchestrate AI agents to achieve outcomes

This presents a need for fundamental transformation across every aspect of people and culture, business processes and technology.

The three horizons of becoming a Frontier Firm

Frontier Firm transformation unfolds in three progressive horizons, each representing a deeper integration of AI into business operations. These phases move from augmentation to collaboration and ultimately to autonomy, reshaping how organizations deliver value and scale in customer experience.

This progression represents the full realization of the Frontier Firm, where AI is embedded in the organization’s DNA, driving agility, scalability, and innovation in sales and customer service.

Sales: Three horizons of AI transformation

Traditional sales processes are burdened by manual data entry, fragmented systems, and time-consuming administrative tasks – leaving sellers with less time for strategic engagement and building customer relationships.

To transform, organizations must progress through three horizons of AI transformation, each building on the last to streamline workflows, empower sellers, and drive revenue growth.

Horizon 1 – AI as a sales assistant:

AI supports sellers by simplifying preparation and administrative work. Microsoft Copilot for Sales embedded in tools like Outlook and Teams provides instant access to CRM data, recent communications, and company insights. Sellers can quickly prepare for meetings, draft follow-up plans, and update CRM records – all without leaving their workflow. The goal is to eliminate repetitive tasks and free time for relationship-building.

Horizon 2 – AI as digital deal partner:

AI evolves into a collaborative partner, taking ownership of specific tasks under human guidance. It monitors pipeline health, flags anomalies, and suggests proactive actions. AI can draft personalized outreach based on customer behavior and sentiment analysis, enabling sellers to focus on strategic conversations and closing deals.

Horizon 3 – AI as an autonomous seller:

AI becomes capable of managing entire sales processes with minimal oversight. It can qualify leads (e.g. Sales Qualification Agent), manage deal progression, and coordinate across marketing, finance, and operations to ensure alignment. This phase represents full automation of sales workflows, driving scale and efficiency while maintaining personalization.

Customer service: Three horizons of AI transformation

For many organizations, traditional customer service suffers from a high total cost of service, customer service representatives performing “swivel-chair” integrations – manually connecting data from disparate systems and ultimately unsatisfied customers.

To overcome these challenges, three phases of AI transformation aim to reduce complexity, empower customer service representatives, and deliver superior customer experiences.

Horizon 1 – AI as a customer service representative assistant:

AI helps service agents work faster by generating case summaries, drafting personalized emails, and updating records without switching tools. This reduces friction, accelerates resolution times, and improves customer satisfaction. The goal is to eliminate repetitive tasks and empower agents to focus on empathy and complex problem-solving.

Horizon 2 – AI as a digital case worker:

AI begins to collaborate actively, triaging incoming cases, recommending resolutions (e.g. Customer Intent Agent) based on historical data, and escalating complex issues with context-rich summaries. It becomes an integral member of the support team, improving responsiveness and consistency while reducing manual workload.

Horizon 3 – AI as an autonomous customer service representative:

AI handles end-to-end case management – from intake to resolution, including follow-ups and feedback collection. It continuously monitors (e.g. Quality Evaluation Agent) and learns from interactions to improve future performance, delivering exceptional customer experiences at scale and enabling human agents to focus on innovation and high-value engagement.

Bringing the Frontier Firm to life

Success as a Frontier Firm requires a deliberate strategy to embed AI into the fabric of the organization while safeguarding trust and empowering people. From setting a clear vision and ethical guardrails to enabling human-AI collaboration and building workforce fluency, every dimension is critical.

Leadership: Driving ethical and strategic AI adoption

The journey to becoming a Frontier Firm begins with strong leadership. Executives must position AI as a strategic enabler, not just a technology upgrade. This requires setting a clear vision for AI adoption that aligns with business strategy. Leaders must also establish governance frameworks to ensure ethical, transparent, and responsible use of AI across the organization. By fostering a culture of trust and accountability, leadership can create an environment where AI augments human judgment instead of replacing it.

Empowerment: Human-AI chemistry

Empowering employees to collaborate effectively with AI is critical to success. Rather than viewing AI as a threat, organizations should design workflows where humans orchestrate AI agents to achieve outcomes. This means giving employees the approved tools and autonomy to experiment, innovate, and leverage AI-driven insights in their daily work. When people feel confident and supported in using AI, they can focus on higher-value tasks such as strategic decision-making and creative problem-solving.

Skills: Building AI fluency

AI adoption is only as strong as the workforce’s ability to use it effectively. Organizations must invest in continuous learning programs that build AI literacy and data-driven thinking across all roles. This includes equipping teams with practical skills to interpret AI insights and apply them in real-world scenarios. Cross-functional learning opportunities can help bridge gaps between technical and business teams, ensuring that AI becomes a shared capability rather than a siloed expertise. A workforce fluent in AI is essential for scaling transformation and driving sustainable growth.

Redefining journeys: AI-powered experiences

Customer and employee journeys must be reimagined to fully harness AI’s potential. This involves embedding AI to deliver seamless, personalized, and proactive experiences. From sales to service, AI can anticipate needs, personalize interactions, and streamline processes, shifting organizations from reactive models to predictive engagement. By redefining these journeys, businesses can create differentiated experiences that build loyalty, improve satisfaction, and drive competitive advantage.

Security: Safeguarding AI transformation

As organizations embrace AI at scale, security becomes a cornerstone of customer trust and resilience. AI presents a new set of risks ranging from data leakage, model exploitation, bias and supply chain vulnerabilities. Protecting customer data, ensuring regional and industry compliance, and mitigating risks are essential to maintaining customer confidence. Frontier Firms must update and maintain robust security frameworks that evolve with the adoption of AI.

Data quality and continuous improvement: The AI foundation

High-quality data is the foundation of successful AI adoption. Organizations must invest in robust data governance practices to ensure accuracy, consistency, and security. Beyond initial deployment, AI systems require continuous improvement through feedback loops that refine knowledge and enhance performance over time. Treating AI as an ongoing journey rather than a one-time implementation enables businesses to adapt to changing conditions, optimize outcomes, and maintain a competitive edge. Data excellence and iterative refinement are the cornerstones of an AI-powered enterprise.

Conclusion: The frontier is now

The journey to becoming a Frontier Firm is not linear – it’s iterative, adaptive, and, most of all, requires that we remember customers expect to be treated with empathy. By embracing AI as a strategic partner, organizations can improve customer intimacy, employee empowerment, business agility and value for shareholders. And sales and service teams sit at the heart of this transformation.

Yet, the scale of opportunity – estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars globally – comes with an equally significant challenge: the degree of organizational reinvention required. Success in the agentic era demands more than deploying new tools; it requires rethinking operating models, reshaping culture, and embedding AI across the enterprise so that intelligence flows into every business function, process, and workflow. Organizations must invest in leadership vision, workforce skills, security, and robust data foundations to ensure AI augments human judgment rather than replaces it.

Those willing to make this leap will not only capture economic value, but redefine what exceptional customer experience looks like. The time to act is now.

Come and visit the Capgemini team at Microsoft Ignite 2025 to experience what human-AI chemistry really feels like.