Futurist Ray Kurzweil has a lot of faith in the future of AI. If his prediction is correct, the impact on the way everyone does business will be huge:
‘Artificial intelligence will reach human levels by 2029. Follow that out further…and we will have multiplied the intelligence, the human biological machine intelligence of our civilization a billion-fold.’
It’s fair to say that Kurzweil is bullish about AI, its capabilities in the coming years, and the role it will play in our lives. But what are the facts behind the AI hyperbole? Why does your business need to be ready for it?
We recently conducted a survey that asked organisations if they’re prepared to implement AI and machine learning. Here’s what we found out, and why the results are significant.
Businesses see AI saving them money – and making it
The applications of AI are countless and are only limited by an organisation’s ability to implement them. As AI moves beyond cost efficiency, expect to see a rise in revenue generated by automation.
Most of our respondents saw cost efficiency and customer service as the major areas that AI would positively impact for them. Which isn’t surprising. AI automates busy-work and increases productivity(especially when it comes to compliance-related tasks). It makes use of data to benefit operational efficiency and improves customer relations by effectively managing customer service. It does these things already, and does them very well.
What could you gain?
There is, however, a definite shift taking place. 21% our respondents saw the potential to change their go-to-market strategy. MIT’s investigation of organisations further along in their AI journey found that a significant number of them are ‘prioritising revenue-generating AI applications over cost-saving ones.’ This suggests that AI is poised to not only save these businesses money, but start making them significant amounts, too.
How, though? AI requires a solid infrastructure, as mentioned before, but it also requires machine learning to vastly improve inefficiencies in products and processes. Making use of the technology’s processing power during ideation and market research puts a near-boundless amount of flexible, customisable knowledge at your disposable. While real-time data analysis allows for minute refinements in the production or service-provisioning process.
The ability to manage customer relations is a major part of the money-making puzzle. Developments in machine learning capabilities could lead to applications intelligent enough to successfully handle the sales process from start to finish, with data collection and analysis leading to decision making, product refinement and customer service delivery.
How can you get ready?
Widen your scope. Don’t just think about areas in which AI can help you save money or send the right email to the right lead and start thinking about ways in which it could help you improve your product or service further down the line.
Be imaginative, optimistic and aspirational, and take a wish-list to the experts. They’ll know what you need to reach your AI goals.
Half of businesses have the infrastructure and skills they need to take advantage of AI
Around half of the businesses we spoke to already have the infrastructure and skills they need to make use of AI.Half didn’t.
Investing in infrastructure – in this case, the kind of cloud processing power you’ll need to implement a business-changing AI program – is a necessity.
A global survey of CIOs across a broad range of industries revealed that 72% of those working in digital-forward organisations – and 58% of those in ‘baseline organisation’s – saw AI and machine learning as a priority in terms of investment in the next three years.
What could you gain?
Why are these CIOs so interested in AI? Because they know it’s the future of efficient data analysis, decision making and business growth. According to analytics expert Thomas H. Davenport’s The AI Advantage, there are three stages to an organisation’s AI adoption:
- Assisted intelligence makes use of data on a far greater scale than we’ve ever seen;
- Machine learning mimics human cognitive skills to produce informed analysis of data;
- And finally, autonomous intelligence brings decision-making into the mix.
The future of AI for business is bright. Davenport’s three stages point to a future in which AI is making the kinds of business decisions that the C-suite usually managesand is doing so based on an in-depth knowledge of regulations, industry processes and tailored data analysis. Who knows, business decision-making in the future could approach a kind of logical perfection! The C-suite won’t be replaced, but they’ll have an assistant with superhuman brain-power by their side.
How can you get ready?
Again, you’ll want to take an inventory of what you already have. Is there a solid foundation to build on, or do you need a ground-up cloud solution to refresh your infrastructure and make room for AI? Consult with your IT department and involve them in the decision-making process, then open lines of communication with an MSP that can take stock of your situation and make structural recommendations.
The same goes for your staff. 80 percent of respondents to an EY survey on AI cited a lack of skills as the biggest hurdle to implementing a successful AI strategy. Make sure you’re training existing staff, hiring strategically and fostering relationships with MSPs to fill in knowledge gaps. Without the skills necessary to make the most of AI technologies, you’ll doubtless miss out on some of its most significant capabilities.
Only 32% of businesses have a fully mapped-out AI strategy
The majority of businesses aren’t yet ready to implement AI and make use of its benefits. When we asked whether people were strategising for AI, most respondents either completely lacked a strategy or didn’t yet have a fully thought-through plan.
What could you gain?
The respondents in the not-so-prepared camp need to rectify this. Why? From a positive perspective, AI and automation has the potential to massively benefit organisations no matter the industry they’re in.
A recent study from McKinsey found that businesses in industries such as insurance and travel will see tens of billions of dollars in positive impact with the arrival of advanced automation and machine learning. In fact, an article written earlier this year by analysts at Deloitte began by arguing that:
‘As AI technologies standardise across industries, becoming an AI-fueled organisation will likely be table stakes for survival.’
How can you get ready?
Essentially, if your organisation isn’t prepared to make use of automation, it’ll be missing out on the two percent year-on-year productivity growth that it creates. Building out a full AI strategy is the first step. Ask yourself whether you’ve got the infrastructure, in-house expertise and budget set aside to make the most of what’s to come. Look for resources on automation and AI infrastructure, and where it might positively impact your existing business model.
If you’re involved in production, for example, installing sensors along the production line will gather masses of data that can save huge amounts of time and money by recommending proactive maintenance and cutting production inefficiencies. Machine learning then makes use of the huge amounts of data that these sensors generate, and are the backbone of the ‘smart factories’ forecast to generate trillions of pounds in the next few years. This will funnel data into an AI platform that can point out inefficiencies, saving you money where it was wasted before. Once you’ve gotten as far as you can with the knowledge you already have, it’s time to bring in the experts.
What we’ve learned
The results of our survey, which gathered 100 responses from participants in a variety of industries, have given us several valuable insights. The key takeaway, however, is that:
Getting ready for AI – whether that means training and hiring staff, building your infrastructure or even preparing a basic strategy – is a necessity.
Almost a third of our respondents already have an AI strategy, and a further third have begun the work. AI readiness is no longer an option; it’s a necessity if you want your organisation to remain competitive and continue to grow.
There’s a lot to be excited about when it comes to AI’s future in your business. Starting out on the right foot in terms of infrastructure and strategy means you’ll avoid any obstacles that might get in the way of the benefits that the technology promises.To find out more about how your business can build the foundations of automation and get ready for AI, speak with an expert today.
Collaboration can improve company productivity by 20 to 30%, according to McKinsey. But, increased communication and cross-pollination requires a more open-access approach to tools. Which can be cause for concern as it opens up the potential risks to governance of compliance, security, record-keeping and usability.
In this blog post, we’ll show how Citrix and Microsoft 365 will keep your data safe, your company compliant and, most importantly, your employees productive.

Deploying Citrix-on-Azure with Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 is a clear favourite for businesses. With more than 120 million users worldwide, it’s a versatile solution for company communication and collaboration.
But, Microsoft 365 is only the beginning. The next logical step for any organisation looking to become more efficient is to partner your Microsoft 365 with Citrix-on-Azure. Citrix and Microsoft 365 go hand-in-hand to deliver secure productivity, simplified document-sharing and greater communication.
In short, Citrix lets your employees load up their virtual desktops from any device at any location, while giving you governance over access management and security, direct from the source. It’s complete freedom for your employees, and absolute control for you.
Take advantage of Microsoft-level security
The reality is: most organisations use a combination of on-premises business applications and cloud-hosted applications. Consequently, employees struggle to access applications unless they’re within the secure network of the office.
Citrix Virtual Apps, however, opens up access to vital business applications without creating security weaknesses. Protected by Azure’s security centre, employers can:
- Retain access control;
- Deploy system updates direct to virtual machines,
- And, proactively shut down threats with enhanced machine learning threat protection.
For employees, it means the freedom to collaborate and share information without worrying about a data hack.
User experience
Rewind a few years, and remote working was a company’s worst nightmare. Employees couldn’t access the tools they needed outside of the office, and if they did, employers still weren’t open to the idea.
Now, remote working is a necessity for any business to remain competitive. Consequently, employees need to access applications and systems via multiple devices quickly and efficiently.
Citrix Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) on Azure gives employees the freedom to operate as if they’re at the office, but from any location. Whether it’s an airport lounge in Brussels; a coffee shop in Paris or even the doctor’s office in London, employees can get work done. And, employers can rest easy knowing their vital data is secured at the source within Azure, not on the localised device.
Governance
Creating your governance framework early means that your cloud-based projects are delivered with less hassle for you. It also means avoiding some of the growing pains most commonly associated with rapid growth.
With Citrix, companies can take advantage of Azure governance, deploying compliant applications using Azure blueprints. As a result, your business can easily audit applications and remain as compliant and accountable as possible.
Building on what you know
In Azure, user experience and governance are top of the agenda. But, Citrix and Microsoft 365’s enablement means communication and productivity are improved, too. For example, Teams (and other Microsoft 365 applications like Office 365) means employees can operate in a transparent, unified way, regardless of location. This makes for a more efficient, productive workplace.
Deploying Citrix-on-Azure can seem more complex than it is. Cloud Direct are on hand to advise you through the process, helping your business collaborate more efficiently and securely, all the while retaining control of your all-important data.
Contact an expert today to find out more.

Almost 30,000 companies operate on Windows Server 2008 today, with 140,000 still using Microsoft SQL Server 2008.
But 2008 was more than a decade ago. Spotify and Airbnb had only just launched, and the iPhone was less than a year old. Sure, Windows Server and SQL Server 2008 provided a great foundation for businesses looking to deploy multiple technologies, but it’s outdated now. After all, how many people still use the first-generation iPhone?
For many organisations, it’s time to shake hands, say goodbye and modernise their business servers. One way or another, your business will have to update, or you’ll put your entire operation at risk.
Here’s what’ll happen if you don’t adapt.
Say goodbye to regular security updates
End-of-life support means an end to regular security updates, which will leave your business vulnerable to attacks. Considering there are an estimated 65,000 attempted cyber-attacks on businesses in the U.K. every day, you can’t ignore the ever-growing threat to personal data.
You certainly can’t operate without state-of-the-art measures to keep your data safe.
Say goodbye to compliance and governance
On the back of security updates is compliance. Without regular updates on Windows and SQL Server 2008, your business will quickly fall short of the new GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. And we all remember how much work it took to get compliant, don’t we?
Moving your workloads from on-premises to Azure and updating your servers will mean that your business can remain agile and compliant with regulations, regardless of how rigorous they become. And given that Microsoft is spending more than $1 billion a year on cybersecurity research, it’s safe to assume that there’s more regulation to come.
Say goodbye to all that efficiency
That’s right. With an end to support comes an end to effective performance, too. This change has a knock-on effect across your entire business. If you fail to update, there’s a good chance you’ll experience slower workloads, more glitches and, with time, broken technologies.
That’ll mean inefficient business processes, a slower time-to-market and a poor customer experience. Woof.
We won’t let you do it to yourself
Migrating your workloads to the cloud and onto an entirely new server is no easy feat. Although Windows Server 2008 support is due to end on 14th January 2020, it’s important to get ahead of the race and plan your migration now.
Cloud Direct’s End of Support Assessment Package will give you the transparency you need to make an informed decision about your migration. We’ll review your existing 2008 Servers and explain the best way your business can handle a migration.
We’ll also help you achieve secure, scalable growth with Azure Scaffold, providing you with the framework to deploy Azure as effectively and efficiently as possible.
By modernising your IT systems and migrating to Azure, your business can unlock the potential it needs to remain competitive, increase its agility and ultimately, push forward with business growth.
Dates for your diary
SQL Server 2008/2008 R2 End of Support: 9th July 2019
Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 End of Support: 14th January 2020
Do you know SQL Server and Microsoft Server 2008 go end of support in the next 12-months? Read on to find out what this means for your business and what your next steps should be.
The all important dates:
SQL Server 2008/2008 R2 End of Support – 9th July 2019
Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 End of Support – 14th January 2020
What does this mean for your business?
After these dates, SQL Server and Microsoft Server 2008 will no longer be supported by Microsoft. This means no more security updates, performance updates or patches from Microsoft. You’ll still be able to use SQL and Windows Server, but you’ll no longer receive support leaving your business increasingly vulnerable to new cyber threats.
Your options to extend support
Microsoft are extending support for both these solutions, including security updates, for 3 years if they are moved to Azure. This could mean re-hosting your 2008 servers in Azure or a full migration to Azure Virtual Machines. But the right solution for your business depends on a variety of factors, including your current workloads, the impact on the wider business and cost implications.
Plan your migration
Cloud Direct’s 2008 End Of Support Assessment Package is designed to provide you with the knowledge you need to make an informed decision and to approach your migration with confidence. The assessment package provides customers with a review of their current 2008 server set up and insight into their migration options.
Benefits of the package
This package will help you prepare and plan the best way to handle your migration. Providing you with an understanding of the impact on the business and potential costs.
What the assessment looks at
The assessment provides a high-level overview of your Windows and SQL estate including a comprehensive review of your current set up and assessment of the individual workloads on each server. Building a comprehensive understanding of what you use the servers for and the impact on the business if one of these fails or is breached.
Your individual report
Once the assessment is completed you will receive a full report with recommended actions for individual items based on the review’s findings. This will include a Road Map for your migration outlining the recommended migration option for your business with an estimated cost breakdown.
Don’t miss the deadline for SQL and Windows Server 2008 End of Support. Get in touch today to discover the opportunities for your business.
Azure Scaffold: the framework your business needs to effectively implement Microsoft Azure.
Are you using Microsoft cloud IT solutions? Do you want to unlock features and collaboration streams you didn’t know were available to you? Integrate Azure seamlessly with your existing Microsoft tools, making them work even harder for your business.
As any collector knows, there’s more value in a complete set.
Start your collection
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform built with business needs in mind. As such, it works perfectly with your current setup. Chances are you already have a few Microsoft services as part of your collection of cloud IT solutions. If you can answer yes to any of these questions, this blog post is for you:
- Have you got your team connecting and collaborating with Office 365, Microsoft Teams or Skype for Business?
- Are your customers getting amazing customer service, with Dynamics 365?
- Have you got the full Microsoft 365 set of Office 365, Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility + Security all rolled into one?
Yes? Then it’s time you consider adding Azure to your collection. Get the set.
Azure Active Directory and apps with Office 365
Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is an identity and access management system designed to help you manage your user and group accounts, set up single sign-on and sync passwords.
The good news is, if you have Office 365, you get a free subscription to Azure AD. The better news is, by upgrading you gain a whole host of additional management capabilities. You could use gain broader functionality with the Azure AD Application Proxy. This lets you publish on-premise web apps with Azure AD. Or, improve the flexibility of your management systems using Microsoft Identity Manager and create dynamic groups or set up self-service group management.
And, grant granular application access with Integrated apps (including third-parts SaaS apps and Power apps), so that if you want to roll out access on an enterprise scale, you can do it en masse. Go even further and run customised web apps and mobile apps in Azure, and integrate these easily with SharePoint Online to share information gained from these apps with your teams.
Secure customer data with Dynamics 365, Power BI and Azure
Access is one thing. On the other side of the coin, how do we prevent threats from accessing data?
Dynamics 365 hosted on Azure provides integrated advanced encryption and security capabilities for sensitive data, such as customer information. By coupling Azure Service Bus with Dynamics 365, you gain a reliable information delivery service that improves communications between systems. Not only does this make transferring data easier, but also it is reliably secure.
As well as keeping this data safe from external threats, you also want to use customer data, such as preferences, behaviours and actions, to inform your decision-making. With Azure and Power BI, you can take stored data and create real-time business intelligence analytics. Power BI Embedded on Azure even lets you load custom visualisations to suit your business’ individual needs.
And before you ask, yes there’s plenty to learn from Dynamics 365 reports, but we say boost your reporting power ten-fold with Power BI’s advanced functionality. Read more about it, here.
Get an expert to value your collection
Cloud Direct is an Azure Expert MSP, ready and waiting to offer our knowledge and resources to a business looking to expand their cloud IT solutions with Azure.
Collect and connect, in the cloud.
Microsoft made it clear at this year’s Build conference that Azure development is one of their key focus areas. Scott Guthrie, the Executive Vice President of the Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise group said:
“One of the defining aspects of cloud computing is the ability to innovate and release new technology faster and at greater scale than ever before.”
With the kind of rapid evolution we’ve grown to expect from the cloud, Azure is likely to look quite a bit different in five years. With that in mind, we’ve gathered our top predictions for what Azure will look like in 2025.
Information overload
By 2025, IDC predicts that the total amount of data created will reach 163 zettabytes. That’s a massive number and will drive even more organisations to adopt some form of cloud computing just to store the droves of information they need to operate.
Azure is already well-prepared for this huge increase in raw data – it’s got more global data regions than any other provider to date. It’s likely that we’ll see even more upscaling in this area, though.
Microsoft is preparing for the spread of smart homes, smart offices and smart cities, which it predicts will produce a combined 250 petabytes of data per day. Expect the Internet of Things (IoT) to give way to the ‘Internet of Everything’. AI will connect people with their devices, their offices and their cities.
Dealing with the data
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”
So says Sherlock Holmes, and you can bet that Azure developers are thinking the same thing. The massive uptick in data means nothing if it can’t be used and analysed, and humans just can’t work with that much data efficiently. They need help if they want to use their data to drive innovations and development at all.
AI will undoubtedly play an increasing role for Azure users, allowing for rapid analysis of swathes of information. Previously under-utilised data will become one of the most valuable assets for many organisations – once the knowledge it offers is unlocked by machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Azure’s Cognitive Services will be employed to analyse, report and predict on a far larger scale, and will likely come built-in to almost every new app. On-site hardware for most organisations just won’t have the ability to perform these tasks, so the cloud will be employed. Effective analysis enabled by AI will no longer become a bonus; it’ll be the main event.
The rise of new media
The democratisation of VR and AR will give way to an exponential increase in use-cases for the technology. Azure’s Media Services takes the processing, streaming and encoding burden off of individual developers and organisations, opening up the possibilities for ever more ambitious experiences and functions. Expect to see Azure at the forefront for the use of new media by 2025.
Hybrid cloud futures
IDG’s 2018 Cloud Computing Survey offers a number of insights that point to the future of cloud computing. Amongst their discoveries was that a multi-cloud strategy is an increasingly popular method of adoption for enterprises. Both public and private cloud use has increased since last year, and integration between the two will be even more important for a broader range of organisations in the next few years.
Azure offers all flexibility that multi-cloud and hybrid cloud strategies you could need. With its Stack and SQL offerings already enjoying success, it’s likely that business use will have grown significantly by 2025. Azure’s secure cloud offerings is one of the key factors behind its rapid increase in market share – another insight offered by IDG’s survey.
Cloud Direct’s Azure predictions
Scott Guthrie is aware of what people will come to expect from the cloud in the coming years:
‘The technology…is really being bet on to deliver radically new digital experiences that completely transform your organisation’s business model.”
These new digital experiences will be the result of a change in the way that people will use Azure by 2025. The percentage of organisations using the cloud just to store and retrieve data will – and has already begun to – drop, while the percentage that expects data analysis, hybrid integration and new media support will rise.
The way we work is changing alongside the cloud as its capabilities are broadened and integration is wider spread. Data analysis will no doubt play a bigger role in most industries with the ability to gain near-instant insight from swathes of information, and there’s no telling what the rise of new media will bring with it. Meetings in VR? Augmented reality architecture planning? Whatever the application, there’s no doubt that entire industries will experience a paradigm shift. Azure will be both driving and responding to this shifting understanding and use of the cloud.
Enterprise cloud computing is growing rapidly. By 2020, cloud-specific spending is expected to grow more than six times the rate of general IT spending. This investment in cloud technologies has meant that once-distant capabilities are now available for business use. Suddenly, things like artificial intelligence are a workplace norm.
For example, for cloud applications like Office 365, there have been multiple AI deployments that work to help people operate more collaboratively and efficiently, without the need to donate more time.
Here are four Office 365 AI updates you ought to know about:
MyAnalytics for Office 365
For increased productivity, Microsoft has deployed MyAnalytics in Office 365 to help you visualise and interpret data in a more digestible way. It uses AI and machine learning to pull data together, which is generated based on your behaviour across the Office 365 suite.
Previously called Delve Analytics, this new AI update helps you and your teams understand insights into how you’re working. As a result, you can recognise how you spend time at work; across meetings; answering emails; the time you designate as ‘focus time’ and time spent ‘after-hours’. It all helps you become more productive.
Ideas in Excel
Ideas is a recent AI update for Excel. In short, it lets you understand your data through the use of visual summaries, trends and patterns. To use Ideas in Excel, you can highlight specific data points and click on the ‘ideas’ button, which will then use AI to analyse your data and show you interesting visual summaries.
This is a great way of understanding areas of data you might not have considered to be valuable. Perhaps there’s a correlation between two data points you haven’t spotted, or you didn’t take note of important outliers. Ideas will help you understand how your data is connected.
Language translations in Word for Mac
Microsoft recently published a series of Office 365 updates on their website, one of which was new AI capabilities in Word for Mac.
Mac users can now translate portions of text or entire documents into more than 60 different languages, including 11 neural machine translations, which use machine learning to translate a word like a human would, so your sentence doesn’t lose context.
Word for Mac also comes with Resume Assistant (CV Assistant for us Brits), which helps you create more engaging CVs using personalised insights on LinkedIn.
Draft Sync
Microsoft has released an AI update that lets you sync your email drafts between multiple devices automatically, reducing your need to rewrite emails.
Given that more than half of the UKs workforce will be remote working by 2020, Draft Sync means you can pick up where you left off from on your mobile, for example, so you can continue to work while you’re out and about, without having to start again.
A brave new world
Understanding how to make the most of these AI updates in Office 365 can be a daunting task. Quite often, new updates can have you feeling like your elderly grandmother at a computer – overwhelmed and unsure of where to start.
With Cloud Direct, however, we’ll show you the ropes, so you can get the most out of these updates. With a little help, you can work smarter and harder without having to sacrifice any of the precious time you need to drive the business forward.
‘Never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today.’
– Aldous Huxley, Brave New World.
Digital transformation is all about the technology, right? Wrong. It starts with culture. A culture of change. Of innovation. Of fearless growth. How can you build a technology-driven workplace if your employees aren’t on board?