Through its close partnership with Microsoft, Axians leverages solutions and technologies such as Copilot, Copilot Studio, and AI Foundry. We support organizations in exploring AI opportunities and developing practical solutions.
By combining these technologies with its own expertise and platforms like Maestro, Axians supports customers step by step in adopting AI and turning experimentation into tangible business outcomes.
In this interview, Christiaan Hoos, Alliance Director Microsoft at Axians, explains how Axians positions itself within the Microsoft AI ecosystem, how organizations can structure their AI adoption journey, and why managing the lifecycle of AI agents will be an important focus in the years ahead.
How do you see Axians positioning itself within the Microsoft AI ecosystem?
As a Microsoft partner, Axians is very active in several ways within the Microsoft AI ecosystem.
We support customers in their AI adoption journey and help them explore and integrate AI capabilities within their organizations.
Second, we build custom AI solutions tailored to our customers’ specific needs.
Third, we develop AI agents for our own ISV based solutions and integrate AI directly into our platforms and offerings.
We support our customers in becoming Frontier companies.
How does Axians ensure that AI strategy and adoption are structurally embedded in our Microsoft engagements to deliver scalable ROI?
For many customers, the first step in their AI strategy and adoption journey is simply to start. Organizations need to begin experimenting with AI in their environments and become familiar with both the capabilities and constraints of the technology.
Based on this learning experience, we help customers build a culture of AI driven innovation within their organizations. This culture focuses on innovation while also considering the ROI of that innovation. It helps our customers become Frontier organizations.
Our approach to AI adoption consists of three steps.
- Create a shared vision, secure leadership commitment, inspire employees, and achieve initial tangible successes to build positive momentum.
- Establish sustainable structures and processes for AI within the company, strengthen employee empowerment, and successfully implement additional AI use cases.
- Establish AI as an integral part of the corporate strategy, continuously create added value, and promote an AI driven culture.
From your perspective, what should be Axians’ next strategic investment in AI within the Microsoft landscape, such as industry solutions, AI agents, or data platforms?
With Maestro, Axians already has a strong Microsoft based data platform available for our customers. Maestro provides a solid foundation for developing AI agents.
For Axians, there are two important developments we will focus on.
- An integrated Axians approach for supporting customers in their Frontier journey
- The Axians AI Agent Lifecycle
Microsoft recently introduced the Frontier Suite, which supports organizations in their AI transformation journey. Axians has the capabilities to support customers across all aspects of this suite. Axians needs to bring these capabilities and services together into an “Axians Frontier Services Suite”.
In the coming years, we will all need to learn how to effectively manage AI agents. While we are rapidly building expertise in developing agents and securing their use, the next step is to structure and formalize this experience.
We therefore need to combine this expertise into an Axians AI Agent Lifecycle Model.
This model should define the complete lifecycle of AI agents, from the initial idea, to building the agent, deploying and using the agent, evaluating its performance, and continuously adjusting and improving it.
To develop this lifecycle model, we need to bring together experts across different areas of the Microsoft ecosystem. This includes expertise in AI agent development, as well as knowledge of security and operational monitoring.