Across industries, business leaders are turning to AI to go beyond productivity—using it to accelerate innovation, fuel growth, enter new markets, and sharpen their competitive edge. As market conditions shift and regulations evolve, organizations are also using AI to boost resilience, improve efficiency, and achieve meaningful cost savings.
That’s why the question isn’t whether to invest in AI—it’s where it will make the biggest difference.
The best place to start? Identifying the AI business use cases that align to the specific needs and priorities of your organization and your industry—because these use cases are what turn potential into measurable outcomes.
At Microsoft, we’ve seen that the most successful AI strategies are grounded in industry context. From financial services and retail to manufacturing and healthcare, organizations are applying AI in practical, targeted ways to solve complex challenges and unlock new opportunities.
Let’s take a closer look at the AI use cases in business that are driving transformation today—through proven industry examples.
Financial services firms transform operations and experiences with AI
Banking, insurance, and capital markets firms are under growing pressure to modernize. They’re expected to deliver more personalized service, manage costs, and stay ahead of evolving regulatory demands—while also providing seamless, secure, and relevant experiences across every interaction.
To meet these expectations, financial institutions are turning to AI business applications to address specific challenges across customer service, compliance, and operations. Key use cases include:
- Delivering more personalized customer service through AI-powered agents that can resolve issues in real time and scale human support.
- Enabling more relevant and timely engagement by equipping relationship managers with AI tools that provide real-time insights into customer behavior, market signals, and product performance.
- Enhancing compliance and fraud detection with AI models that support transaction monitoring and automated regulatory reporting.
- Reducing operational costs and improving efficiency by using AI to automate document-heavy tasks like loan processing, claims management, and compliance reviews.
These use cases are already driving results. Aditya Birla Capital, a diversified financial services group in India, adopted AI across its banking, insurance, and asset management businesses. The company increased lead generation through more personalized experiences, boosted contact center productivity by 20%, maintained strong compliance while accelerating digital transformation, and reduced operating costs by over 40% through automation and greater efficiency.
Retailers drive shopper conversions with AI-powered innovations
Retailers are navigating rising customer expectations, supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and fierce competition across digital and physical channels. To stay ahead, they must deliver more personalized experiences, operate with greater agility, and equip employees to deliver faster, smarter service.
AI is helping retailers address these challenges with several high-impact use cases across the value chain:
- Delivering personalized shopping experiences with AI agents that recommend products in real-time based on customer preferences, behavior, and trend data—boosting conversions, reducing returns, and increasing loyalty.
- Empowering store and service employees with AI business solutions that provide instant answers to store procedures and policies, inventory, product details, and customer insights—increasing productivity and enhancing customer service.
- Improving supply chain visibility by unifying customer, product, and operational data in AI-powered platforms that enhance forecasting, inventory planning, and targeted marketing.
- Strengthening security and resilience through AI-powered threat detection and adaptive protection that defends against credential theft, unauthorized access, and malicious actors.
These AI use cases are delivering measurable results. ASOS, a go-to destination for young fashion lovers, is a standout example of personalization. The retailer uses an AI-powered conversational interface to curate product selections based on shopper preferences and highlight the latest trends—all while maintaining brand voice. This results in increased engagement, higher conversions, and improved customer satisfaction.
Companies like Carvana, an online used car retailer, and Albert Heijn, a leading grocery store chain in the Netherlands, are also seeing strong results with AI-powered shopping assistants that deliver fast, intuitive, and highly personalized experiences at scale.
Manufacturers transform the value chain with AI
Manufacturers are under intense pressure to remain competitive in the face of global supply chain disruptions, rising costs, evolving customer expectations, and the need to meet sustainability goals. To stay ahead, they must improve equipment reliability, increase production efficiency, and accelerate innovation across the entire value chain.
AI is helping manufacturers address these demands with targeted use cases that drive both operational and strategic impact across the value chain:
- Reducing unplanned downtime through AI-powered predictive maintenance that monitors equipment health and alerts teams to potential failures before they occur.
- Improving product quality and yield by using AI-powered visual inspection and real-time defect detection to catch issues earlier and reduce waste.
- Accelerating product development with generative design and AI-assisted coding that shortens engineering cycles and reduces time to market.
- Enabling faster decision-making on the factory floor by giving teams access to real-time performance metrics through natural language interfaces and AI agents.
These AI use cases are already helping leading manufacturers drive results. On the factory floor, Rolls-Royce, a global manufacturer of power systems for aviation and industrial markets, is using AI to monitor engine health and prevent around 400 unplanned maintenance events annually—saving millions and improving overall reliability. The company also applies AI to improve defect detection, increasing machine usage by 30%, and reducing fault resolution time from days to near real time.
Schaeffler, a global automotive and industrial supplier, uses AI agents and real-time data access to enhance reporting, decision-making, and troubleshooting—improving uptime, productivity, and yield across its operations.
Healthcare organizations improve care and research with AI
AI is reshaping the entire healthcare ecosystem—including how providers deliver care, how payors manage populations, and how life sciences organizations accelerate innovation. Healthcare leaders are working to improve outcomes, reduce provider burden, expand access, and drive research breakthroughs, all while managing rising costs and maintaining compliance.
To meet these demands, organizations are turning to AI to support critical use cases across care delivery and innovation:
- Streamlining clinical workflows with AI assistants that surface critical information in real time and automate tasks—giving providers more time to focus on patient care.
- Enhancing patient engagement with AI tools that help individuals access health information, schedule appointments, and stay connected with providers.
- Supporting clinical decision-making through AI models that improve diagnostics, disease detection, and treatment planning, while enabling more efficient and equitable care models using multimodal AI insights from unified healthcare data.
- Accelerating drug discovery and development by enabling researchers to collaborate more effectively, uncover insights from large volumes of data, and reduce clinical trial timelines.
These use cases are already driving measurable impact. At Beth Israel Lahey Health (BILH), the medical center’s AI-powered app gives care teams real-time access to thousands of critical care documents—improving efficiency, policy compliance, and the overall quality of care.
Syneos Health, a global biopharmaceutical solutions provider, is applying AI to improve predictive modeling and accelerate clinical trial site activation time by 10%, helping bring lifesaving therapies to patients faster.
Let’s put the right AI use cases into action for your industry
Across financial services, retail, manufacturing, and healthcare, organizations are applying AI through proven use cases that reflect the specific needs and challenges of their industry—and are already seeing measurable impact.
At Microsoft, we’re building on insights from thousands of customer engagements to help you identify where AI can make the biggest impact for your organization and your industry.
See more examples of how businesses use AI to drive impact and growth. Explore Microsoft AI Use Cases for Business Leaders: Realize Value with AI.