Partner Blog | Expanded partner benefits are now available: What’s new in February 2026
Expanded partner benefits are now available across the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. These updates reflect continued investment in the tools, resources, and support partners rely on to build, differentiate, and grow, and they incorporate feedback we hear consistently across the ecosystem. If you read our January post about planning ahead for the February refresh, this is the follow-up: the new benefits are now rolling out, and partners with eligible offers will find them in Partner Center as they become available. What’s new You’ll find a range of meaningful additions designed to empower you to move faster with AI, support security needs, and improve go-to-market execution. Highlights include: Copilot additions in select offers: The FY26 refresh introduces new Copilot-related benefits across parts of the program, including Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Microsoft Dragon Copilot (per user) in select partner offers where available. Security benefits expansion: Security-focused benefits have been broadened, including additions such as Microsoft Defender Suite, Microsoft Entra Suite, and Microsoft Intune Suite in select offerings. Azure credit updates: Azure benefits are being updated across multiple offers, including new additions and increases in value for certain cloud benefits. These credits are designed to support solution development, testing, and expansion of your practice. Go-to-market resources: As partners continue to access marketing benefits and resources through the program, Microsoft is simplifying discovery and execution—so you can bring campaigns to market with less friction. Continue reading herePartner Blog | Transforming customer engagement into growth with Copilot and agentic AI
For Frontier Firms, every customer engagement is an opportunity to drive transformation. Each interaction creates space to unlock innovation, accelerate outcomes, and deliver lasting value. We’re entering an era where intelligence is becoming an on-demand utility. Just as the cloud transformed access to computing power, AI is now embedded into the flow of work. Customers expect insight and action in real time. They want faster results, stronger security, and continuous innovation. Meeting those expectations requires more than people alone; it requires an ecosystem that can scale intelligence and deliver outcomes with speed and precision. Microsoft partners are at the center of that transformation. You are the architect of change, realizing customer ambition with a full stack of technology. Through the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, you have access to the technology, skilling, and go-to-market resources that make this transformation achievable. Together, we’re enabling every organization to operate with greater intelligence and agility than ever before. The journey to Frontier transformation AI transformation doesn’t happen in a single project. It’s a sustained journey that moves customers from pilots to full-scale adoption and long-term value. This is what we call always-on selling, where every engagement builds trust, adoption, and expansion. We’ve seen the impact of this approach firsthand at Microsoft. By embedding Copilot into daily workflows, our own Customer Zero experience increased revenue per seller by 9.4 percent and boosted deal closures by 20 percent. Continue reading herePartner Blog | How systems integrators are scaling innovation with Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents
Imagine a workplace where AI agents don’t just support your team, they transform how tasks get done, unlocking new levels of creativity, speed, and impact. That future isn’t on the horizon, it’s here. According to Microsoft’s latest Work Trend Index Annual Report, nearly half of leaders say their companies are already using agents to fully automate workflows or processes across departments and functions. This shift is not just about efficiency, it’s about reimagining how work gets done using the latest AI innovations, and our systems integrator (SI) partners are leading the charge. Across industries, SIs are introducing intelligent agents that streamline operations, boost productivity, and create entirely new customer experiences. These aren’t experiments; they’re high-impact solutions delivering measurable results. And behind many of them are Microsoft 365 Copilot, agentic AI, and a deep partnership with Microsoft. Continue reading hereAnnouncing the Public Preview of Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud for Azure VMware Solution
We are excited to announce the public preview of Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud for Azure VMware Solution. This Azure service offers native-like integration of Pure Storage's innovative enterprise-grade fully managed block Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) with Azure VMWare Solution (AVS) aiding seamless VMware migrations to the cloud along with scalability, simplicity and data resiliency. Azure Native Integrations enable you to easily provision, manage, and tightly integrate independent software vendor (ISV) software and services on Azure. By leveraging the power of Azure, Pure Storage Cloud Service offers you many benefits, including scaling flexibility, native Azure experience, unified billing, and cost-effectiveness. You can easily discover and sign up for this via the Azure Marketplace. "We’re pleased to see Pure Storage’s integration with Microsoft Azure Native service. Through this collaboration, Pure and Microsoft can better serve customer needs by enabling them to provision, use and manage Pure Storage on Azure just like other Azure services. With this integrated offering, Pure and Microsoft are helping customers to quickly leverage Pure's enterprise-grade storage with Azure cloud services securely to open up a whole new set of possibilities for customers bringing enterprise-scale environments to the cloud. Together, Pure and Microsoft are helping customers save time and operational overhead while driving innovation." - Scott Hunter, Vice President Product Management, Microsoft Developer Division. Gartner report from Sept 2024 states that by 2028, consumption-based storage as a service (STaaS) will replace over 33% of enterprise storage capital expenditure (capex), up from less than 15% in 2024. Pure Storage® is a pivotal storage player among the Enterprise customers in revolutionizing the storage, management and resiliency while ensuring flexibility. From AI to archive, Pure Storage delivers a seamless cloud migration experience with one unified Storage as-a-Service (STaaS) platform across on-premises, private and public cloud, and hybrid environments. They are a 11x consequent leaders in Gartner® Magic Quadrant report for Primary Storage Platforms, with highest rating in Execution & Vision. Thus proving why, they are undoubtedly the Enterprise favorites! Some key customers for Pure Storage include Meta, ServiceNow, AC Milan, Comcast and many more! Fig 1: Magic Quadrant for Primary Storage, Sep 2024, Gartner Inc. How will Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud for AVS help me? Fully managed block-storage-as-a-service solution, providing decoupled scalability and flexibility across Compute and Storage solutions. Optimized Total Cost of Operations (TCO) up to 40% with data reduction and compression tools. Seamless data mobility and migrations of VMware workloads across on-premises, hybrid and multi-cloud solutions to the Azure cloud. Enterprise-grade Data protection and Data resilience, with solutions such as Hybrid Disaster Recovery support in the roadmap. Get started with Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud for Azure VMware Solution Setup and subscribe to your Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud, available easily in the Azure Marketplace. You can start your journey free of cost and pay as you use the service. Look for “Pure Storage Cloud" in the Azure Marketplace and sign up via Contact Me button to show your interest for the preview. Fig 2: Contact Me offering on Azure Marketplace Once you have been allowlisted for the preview, you can also look for it using the search bar on Azure Portal or visit the marketplace on Azure portal to see the offer in your list of private plans. Fig 3: Searching for Azure Native Pure Storage via Azure portal Pure Storage in Marketplace private plans via Azure portal Provisioning a Storage Pool via Azure: Follow the instructions in the QuickStart to easily spin up your Pure Storage resource. Once you have created the Pure Storage resource on Azure, follow the simple steps in the Microsoft Learn docs, or navigate directly via the Overview blade to create Storage pools. 2. Quick-and-easy Connect to AVS: You can now easily connect your Pure Storage with your Azure VMWare Solution (AVS) using the “Connect” button in Storage pool. Resources Subscribe to the “Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud for Azure VMware Solution” available as Pay as You Go via Contact me in the Azure Marketplace. Create an Azure Native Pure Resource and storage pools via the service, see QuickStart: Get started with Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud Service in Microsoft Docs. To learn more, check out the Pure blog and Pure’s Press release. Learn more about the Pure Cloud Block Store and how to use it with AVS here.Keep pace with the latest in AI!
Check out our fresh new video series, where leaders from Microsoft show their creative side as they share the latest updates in AI, in a manner that's both educative and fun! Watch the videos, share them with your teams, and bookmark aka.ms/AIOnTheGo to stay updated!Partner Blog | Partner Center Technical Corner: December 2024 edition
Welcome to the December edition of Partner Center Technical Corner. This month’s highlights include a closer look at the new Partner Center AI assistant, important security updates, and a recap of recently released capabilities. As always, you can find the most up-to-date technical roadmap and essential Partner Center resources at the end of the blog. Spotlight: Partner Center AI assistant (preview) Partner Center AI assistant (preview) enhances your Partner Center experience with the power of generative AI, offering tailored insights and intelligent suggestions to transform your everyday tasks in Partner Center into opportunities for growth and innovation. This feature is currently available in preview to partners using the English version of Partner Center. AI assistant (preview) is continually being enhanced to dive deeper into workspaces and provide an individualized experience. It is seamlessly integrated into your experience, continuing your conversations as you navigate through Partner Center. You can ask the AI assistant for help with details on a customer’s Microsoft Azure usage estimate, earnings insights over a given period, or assistance with the various memberships we offer, among many other capabilities. Responses are pulled from a rich array of sources, including Microsoft product documentation, partner program guides, and partner-specific information in Partner Center. For example, on membership queries, the AI assistant answers specific questions around the Solutions Partner designation by reviewing program rules, analyzing underlying metrics, and providing a detailed, data-driven response. The assistant can also troubleshoot missing attribution of employees in skilling scores or provide contextual recommendations to help you qualify for a Solutions Partner designation. Partner feedback: One of our preview users shared, “This is really helpful! And I am very glad to see that our AI friend will know the payment status of claims IDs now.” As needed, partners can initiate the support ticket creation process through the AI assistant panel. Continue reading here
