After committing more than $13 billion in strategic investments to OpenAI, Microsoft is splashing out billions more to get people using the technology.

On Wednesday, Redmond announced a $4 billion donation of cash and technology to schools and non-profits over the next five years. It’s branding this philanthropic mission as Microsoft Elevate, which is billed as “providing people and organizations with AI skills and tools to thrive in an AI-powered economy.” It will also start the AI Economy Institute (AIEI), a so-called corporate think tank stocked with academics that will be publishing research on how the workforce needs to adapt to AI tech.

The bulk of the money will go toward AI and cloud credits for K-12 schools and community colleges, and Redmond claims 20 million people will “earn an in-demand AI skilling credential” under the scheme, although Microsoft’s record on such vendor-backed certifications is hardly spotless.

“Working in close coordination with other groups across Microsoft, including LinkedIn and GitHub, Microsoft Elevate will deliver AI education and skilling at scale,” said Brad Smith, president and vice chair of Microsoft Corporation, in a blog post. “And it will work as an advocate for public policies around the world to advance AI education and training for others.”

It’s not an entirely new scheme – Redmond already had its Microsoft Philanthropies and Tech for Social Impact charitable organizations, but they are now merging into Elevate. Smith noted Microsoft has already teamed up with North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany to train students on AI, and says similar partnerships across the US education system will follow.

Microsoft is also looking to recruit teachers to the cause.

On Tuesday, Microsoft, along with Anthropic and OpenAI, said it was starting the National Academy for AI Instruction with the American Federation of Teachers to train teachers in AI skills and to pass them on to the next generation. The scheme has received $23 million in funding from the tech giants spread over five years, and aims to train 400,000 teachers at training centers across the US and online.

“AI holds tremendous promise but huge challenges—and it’s our job as educators to make sure AI serves our students and society, not the other way around,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten in a canned statement.

“The direct connection between a teacher and their kids can never be replaced by new technologies, but if we learn how to harness it, set commonsense guardrails and put teachers in the driver’s seat, teaching and learning can be enhanced.”

Meanwhile, the AIEI will sponsor and convene researchers to produce publications, including policy briefs and research reports, on applying AI skills in the workforce, leveraging a global network of academic partners.

Hopefully they can do a better job of it than Redmond’s own staff. After 9,000 layoffs from Microsoft earlier this month, largely in the Xbox division, Matt Turnbull, an executive producer at Xbox Game Studios Publishing, went viral with a spectacularly tone-deaf LinkedIn post (now removed) to former staff members offering AI prompts “to help reduce the emotional and cognitive load that comes with job loss.” ®

Most of us want to see real benefits from AI, and for businesses, the contact center has long been one of the best use cases. The challenges are very real, and there is lots of incentive to find better solutions. With customer service now being framed as CX, the problem set becomes strategic for the business, so it’s bigger than just the contact center.

As such, the stakes are higher now, and technology investments are no longer about making incremental improvements. CX leaders – and business leaders – need to be ready to re-think everything they do in the name of serving customers. The more rooted the contact center is in legacy technology, the more transformational the change needs to be. With the right approach, the outcomes can meet this brief, especially in terms of elevating CX, and making customers feel more valued than ever before.

With all the hype, contact centers are being led to believe that AI is the right – and perhaps only – approach for them to follow. But, how can technology decision-makers know for sure? There are real results in the market, and to illustrate, I have some takeaways from a recent vendor event.

NiCE Interactions 2025 – Making it Real

All CX vendors aspire to deliver that right approach, but with AI evolving so fast, it’s difficult to tell who is getting real results. Any vendor can show tangible, AI-driven outcomes around standard KPIs such as time to answer or handle times, but these metrics are largely about automation.

Related:New Five9 CX Report Highlights Multifaceted AI Uses

While valuable, it’s not transformational, and what CX leaders should really be looking for are business-level outcomes that reflect a more strategic approach to AI. Automation is part of that, but AI needs to also address business drivers such as customer retention, marketing efficacy, agent empowerment, operational efficiency, compliance, data security, etc.

When thinking along those lines, the bar becomes higher for enterprises when partnering with CX vendors. They need a richer sense of what’s real, not just for the incremental benefits, but also the bigger picture where AI helps CX align with their business strategy.

That may be asking a lot, but I saw solid evidence of that at the recent NiCE Interactions 2025 event in Las Vegas. Aside from showcasing major strides with AI and their CXone platform from last year’s Interactions event, this was the first time most of us saw new-ish CEO Scott Russell. The company also just did a branding refresh to reflect their “NiCE world” product promise, which behind the scenes is largely powered by AI.

Related:Forrester’s Global CX Index Reports Continuing Downward CX Trend

While agentic AI is all the rage right now, it’s just one of many touch points along the CX spectrum for AI. Before moving on to customer successes, it’s worth noting how extensively AI is embedded throughout NiCE’s CXone platform, as this is a big part of making that product promise real.

A few examples of these AI CX touchpoints include Topic AI, where unstructured transcripts are turned into structured data to enrich their LLMs; using Copilot to augment agent performance; Agent Builder to automate workflows; and Mpower Desk to make all tasks visible on one screen in real time, integrating front and back-office operations on a single platform.

Real Results from Real Customers

Impressive as all this is, the best proof points came directly from the customers themselves. Over the two days of sessions, we heard from six Tier-1 customers, each of whom explained how AI aligned with the company’s broader business priorities and initiatives while also driving better CX outcomes.

Tangible CX outcomes were cited, but just as important, we heard how these AI capabilities are helping them understand and meet the expectations of today’s customers – something all of them were struggling to do before. Here are two select examples, and note how they are from very different types of businesses; NiCE’s capabilities are not specific to a particular vertical, meaning that all CX leaders should be thinking along these lines for AI.

Related:Contact Centers Confront Competing Priorities – and the AI Wolf at the Door

Arun Chandra, Disney

The first customer success story was from Arun Chandra, SVP of CX at Disney. I would argue that Disney sets the bar for how successfully brands tell stories, and the company’s narrative here was about customer journey being a form of storytelling. Chandra talked about the importance of upholding the brand in everything they do, and being the best at everything they do. As such, when it came to using AI for CX, Disney needed a partner with the best technology, the best AI safeguards, and the ability to do both at scale.

Knowing their AI deployment with NiCE would be safe, Disney has been able to deploy a mix of human and virtual agents for seamless CX to deliver a more modern form of customer service.

In terms of supporting the Disney brand, this new approach for using AI with CX also aligns well with Disney being a leading adopter of cinematic technology for movie making. While no AI metrics were shared here, the impact on a strategic level is real, and is a great example for how some customers are looking for more than tangible outcomes when choosing a CX partner for AI.

Brendan Mulryan, H&R Block

As VP of CX, Mulryan explained tax returns could benefit from modernizing their approach to customer service. With a nationwide network of retail locations to support millions of customers, a consumer-facing financial services company is an ideal use case for AI. Not only must call routing be intelligent enough to route inquiries to the nearest location, but the customer support must scale up for traffic peaks during tax season that are unlike most any other type of business.

Most of H&R Block’s inquiries are telephony-centric, simple tasks like setting appointments to come in to meet with a tax preparer. While not looking to reinvent the customer journey, H&R Block’s core need was to uplevel their IVA, especially during tax season. With NiCE Autopilot, the company was able to automate these inquiries, along with providing an SMS offramp in cases where customers preferred to use messaging instead of voice.

Not only does this improvement make the process of tax filing more efficient for everyone, but a better CX also strengthens customer loyalty. In terms of operational efficiency, Mulryan reported a 63% containment rate with NiCE. I don’t think he shared what that level was previously, but it clearly was an improvement, where almost two thirds of all calls could be fully automated.

That alone might be enough to justify deploying AI, but as with Disney – and other customer success stories – the strategic drivers were major considerations in choosing a technology partner. For H&R Block, this would be partnering with a vendor that could support their Next 2030 plan, and how improving CX is more than just serving the customer well for this year’s return.

The bigger goal is to “empower financial freedom for the client through trust and technology”, where the focus is on the lifetime value of each customer. Technology is key to building trust in any business, but especially here, when dealing with highly-sensitive personal financial data. Brendan cited a data point to support a high level of trust, showing that 78% intend to return after deploying with NiCE. That’s another good metric to show the real impact of AI on CX.

On a more strategic level, he talked about the need for AI to derive new insights from customer interactions to allow both agents and tax preparers to provide more personalized forms of service. This drives new value, not just for identifying new areas to provide additional services during tax time, but throughout the entire year. As such, similar to Disney, H&R Block had specific objectives, as well as transformational aspirations for CX, making this more than just an exercise in modernizing self-service.

The Takeaway for Enterprise Technology Leaders

Across these customer success stories – along with others during the breakout sessions – NiCE is clearly delivering real results with AI. As with any showcase event for customers, prospects and partners, there was also AI hype. Yes, the hype is real, but so are the results, and for the time being, the two go hand-in-hand with vendor messaging.

At Interactions, attendees did get a taste of some real benchmarks with AI, so it would be a mistake for CX leaders to hold off on AI until there’s more proof, and/or for the hype to die down. To that, I would cite Bryan Mulryan’s parting message about how the “cost of inaction” is high, especially with AI changing so quickly.

Along with that, he noted the need to rethink notions of ROI with these new technologies. The “right approach” for CX leaders is about achieving transformational outcomes with AI, and not just looking for operational efficiencies. Performance metrics do validate AI as being real, but so do the transformational outcomes that go beyond the numbers. That was a common theme across all the customer success stories, and when considering partners for AI and CX, the reality check needs to be a mix of both.

Google has taken a major step toward the future of clean energy by partnering with Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), an MIT spin-out working to build one of the world’s first commercial fusion reactors. This Google fusion deal marks a pivotal moment for the tech giant as it looks to secure reliable, carbon-free power for its growing AI operations.

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Inside Google’s historic fusion power deal

Google will purchase 200 megawatts (MW) of electricity from CFS’s planned ARC fusion power plant in Chesterfield County, Virginia. This amount of power could support roughly 150,000 to 200,000 homes. More likely, it will help run Google’s expanding network of AI data centers. The actual usage will depend on how Google allocates the electricity.

This is Google’s first energy deal involving fusion technology. It is also the largest fusion power purchase agreement signed so far. The ARC plant is projected to begin operations in the early 2030s, though fusion projects often face delays. While the electricity does not yet exist, the deal highlights growing demand for long-term, clean energy solutions.

Steam rises from cooling towers at a nuclear facility. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

How nuclear fusion works and why it matters for clean energy

Fusion is the same process that powers the sun. Instead of splitting atoms like traditional nuclear power, fusion forces hydrogen atoms to fuse together at extremely high temperatures. This reaction releases enormous amounts of energy. It does not produce greenhouse gases or long-lived radioactive waste.

Scientists have worked on fusion for decades, but no one has produced fusion power at commercial scale yet. CFS aims to change that with its SPARC demonstration reactor, now under construction in Massachusetts. The larger ARC plant is planned to deliver commercial fusion energy.

Hands framing the sun during a bright orange sunset. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Google invests in fusion to meet rising AI energy demands

Google’s energy needs are growing quickly as it scales up artificial intelligence models and data infrastructure. Since 2010, the company has invested in renewable sources like wind, solar, and geothermal. However, these sources are not always available when needed.

Fusion could solve this problem by providing round-the-clock clean energy. By signing this agreement, Google is securing future power and helping to speed up fusion technology development. The company has also expanded its investment in CFS to support the ARC project.

Kurt’s key takeaways

Google’s new partnership with CFS is the largest fusion energy deal ever signed. The company will purchase 200 MW of clean power from a future reactor in Virginia. The ARC plant is expected to come online in the early 2030s. Google is the first major company to sign on as a customer for commercial fusion energy. Unlike traditional nuclear power, fusion produces no carbon emissions and no long-lived radioactive waste. It also offers consistent, 24/7 electricity. As Google’s AI systems drive up energy demand, this deal shows how tech companies are looking beyond wind and solar for scalable, future-proof solutions. If CFS delivers, fusion could finally move from science experiment to real-world power source.

Do you think fusion energy will power the future of AI? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.

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