Microsoft announced the launch of Microsoft Frontier Company, a new operating business focused on helping enterprise customers deploy AI systems at scale while protecting their proprietary data, workflows, and intellectual property.
The company said it is investing $2.5 billion in the initiative and will embed 6,000 industry and engineering experts with customers to co-design, deploy, and continuously improve AI systems based on measurable business outcomes. Microsoft described Frontier Company as going beyond the traditional forward-deployed engineering model by combining deep industry expertise, change management, continuous improvement, and enterprise-grade AI engineering.
Microsoft said customers are moving past AI experimentation and are now focused on delivering measurable returns from AI investments. The new business is designed to support what Microsoft calls “Frontier Transformation,” which centers on using AI to amplify a company’s intelligence while maintaining trust, governance, security, and control.
Microsoft said companies need an intelligence platform that allows their proprietary data, expertise, workflows, and decision-making processes to compound over time. They also need a trusted platform for observing, governing, managing, and securing AI systems across the technology stack, including FinOps capabilities to evaluate return on investment.
The company pointed to early customer work with LSEG, Land O’Lakes, Unilever, and Novo Nordisk as examples of the model already producing results. With LSEG, Microsoft engineers and industry experts helped embed AI into LSEG Workspace, enabling finance professionals to ask complex questions and receive faster answers across structured and unstructured financial content.
Microsoft said Frontier Company will also work closely with its partner ecosystem to scale globally. The company highlighted forward-deployed engineering partnerships with global systems integrators including Accenture, Capgemini, EY, KPMG, PwC, and others.
A key principle behind the new organization is protecting customer intelligence. Microsoft said customer data, IP, and competitive advantage will not be used to train models in ways that commoditize what makes those companies different. Microsoft also emphasized that customers should not be locked into a single AI model or vendor, noting that its platform supports model diversity across OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft AI, open-source models, and specialized industry models.
Rodrigo Kede Lima has been named president of Microsoft Frontier Company. He brings 30 years of industry experience and has spent the past six years at Microsoft leading enterprise-wide transformations across the Americas and Asia.
