Cloudforce—the Frontier Firm behind nebulaONE® and Microsoft’s 2025 Partner of the Year—is launching the Frontier Awards Program: an inaugural celebration of the people who boldly push boundaries and redefine what’s possible in the world of AI solutions.

This isn’t just another award program. It’s a rigorous, expert-evaluated recognition of the individuals and partners doing the hardest, most impactful work in AI today.

What Are the Frontier Awards? 

Microsoft defines a Frontier Firm as an organization that doesn’t just experiment with AI—it embeds intelligence across every layer of the business, blending human judgment with machine capability to scale faster, operate with agility, and generate value that others can’t. Cloudforce was built on that principle. The Frontier Awards exist to find the people who embody it.

This year’s Frontier Awards are Cloudforce’s inaugural recognition program, designed to celebrate the achievements of individuals who:

• Drive innovation in AI solutions.
• Champion adoption, advocacy, and transformation.
• Achieve measurable success with technical excellence.

Who Can Participate? 

The Frontier Awards are open to:

• Customers & Practitioners: The pioneers driving transformative AI outcomes across the public sector and beyond.
• Microsoft Partners: Those who collaborate with Cloudforce to drive shared innovation and meaningful impact.

Self-nominations aren’t just accepted—they’re encouraged. If you’ve done the work, own it.

Award Categories 

With seven distinct categories, there’s a place to recognize every type of innovator. Each category will have finalists and one winner. Which one makes you think of someone immediately?

1. 🛠 Technical Hero: Honoring individuals who go above and beyond to solve complex challenges, improve reliability, and ensure mission-critical success.
2. 🔄 Change Champion: Celebrating those who lead transformative change, inspire teams, and challenge the status quo to adopt new ways of working.
3. 📣 Amplified Advocate: Highlighting AI superfans who promote innovative utilization, share success stories, and grow the AI community through advocacy and referrals.
4. 🚀 Adoption Accelerator: Recognizing customers who rapidly scaled AI tools and embedded them into daily operations with measurable results.
5. 🤖 Best Agent / Use Case: Awarding creativity and strategic thinking in implementing AI to solve real-world challenges.
6. ⭐ Customer of the Year: Spotlighting a customer who exemplifies excellence across adoption, innovation, advocacy, and measurable business impact.
7. 🤝 Partner of the Year (Microsoft Employees Only): Celebrating those who drive shared innovation and meaningful impact through partnership.

Timeline 

Nominations will be open from today until 3/26/26. It’s your chance to nominate a colleague, partner, or even yourself! A committee with work to select/announce finalist/winners shortly after. 

How Winners Are Selected

Every nomination is evaluated by a distinguished panel of Cloudforce executives, Microsoft leaders, and respected voices from across the AI industry. This is not a rubber stamp.

The evaluation criteria are rooted in the same principles that define what it means to be a Frontier organization:

• Depth of AI integration — not just experimentation, but enterprise-scale transformation
• Measurable business impact — real outcomes, not just impressive demos
• Innovation mindset — leading with AI-first differentiation, not following
• Community and ecosystem contribution — elevating others, not just yourself

Finalists are reviewed through a multi-stage process that includes panel scoring, cross-reference validation, and deliberation. If you’re selected, it means something.

What’s a Winner get? 

This is about prestige—and access.

🏆 The Frontier Award — a handcrafted award designed to mark a career milestone (yes, the one pictured above—and yes, it belongs on your shelf)

📣 Global Recognition — winners announced via LinkedIn and a worldwide press release, plus a dedicated spotlight feature on Cloudforce’s website

🏅 Digital Badges & Swag — because you’ve earned the bragging rights

Why It Matters 

The Frontier Awards aren’t just about trophies 🏆 (though ours is admittedly hard to stop looking at). They’re about celebrating the people behind the technology—the innovators, the advocates, and the changemakers who make AI solutions come alive.

By sharing success stories and recognizing excellence through a rigorous, credible process, we’re building a stronger, more connected community. And we’re shining a spotlight on the incredible impact our customers and partners are making every day.

Ready to Nominate? 

The official nomination form is linked here. Think about the colleague, the partner, the customer—or yourself—who’s doing breakthrough work in AI. The person who made the impossible deployment happen. The one who got an entire organization onboarded in a month. The advocate who won’t stop talking about what’s possible (in the best way).

This is their moment. Don’t let it pass.

Nominations are free and open until March 26, 2026. Have questions? Email [email protected].

The post Breaking New Ground: Announcing the Frontier Awards Program appeared first on Cloudforce.

Healthcare organizations face increasing pressure to innovate responsibly while maintaining strict compliance and data privacy standards. A leading U.S. academic medical center partnered with Cloudforce to explore how secure, private generative AI could improve everyday operations and support workforce development.​

​Using nebulaONE®, Cloudforce’s secure AI platform built on Microsoft Azure, the medical center automated repetitive, data-heavy tasks that had previously relied on manual review. The result was a more efficient, compliant, and inclusive approach to innovation that aligned with the organization’s mission to deliver quality education and patient care.​

Introduction

Clinical education programs manage thousands of evaluations, forms, and reports each year—an essential but time-intensive process. Leaders sought a way to streamline evaluation reviews and uncover insights faster, without compromising security or regulatory standards.

Cloudforce introduced nebulaONE, a private, fully managed generative AI platform designed for compliance with HIPAA, Microsoft SSPA, SOC 2 Type 1, and GDPR. The goal was to demonstrate that AI can accelerate meaningful work while keeping sensitive information protected and under the organization’s control.

Methods

Cloudforce collaborated with the medical center’s technology and education teams to deploy nebulaONE in a secure Microsoft Azure environment owned by the client.

Key implementation steps included:

Results

Faster Turnaround: Evaluation summaries completed in minutes instead of hours.

Improved Efficiency: Reduced manual administrative time and increased accuracy.

Zero Data Exposure Incidents: Full compliance maintained throughout deployment.

Broader Adoption: Non-technical users across departments engaged with AI tools confidently.

These results showed that secure generative AI can enhance education and operational outcomes without disrupting compliance or governance.

Conclusion

By implementing nebulaONE, the medical center proved that responsible AI adoption in healthcare is achievable and scalable. Cloudforce’s secure, compliant platform enabled staff to focus on higher-value work while maintaining control over sensitive information.

This collaboration represents a shift toward AI for All—where innovation, security, and accessibility work hand in hand to improve how healthcare organizations operate and learn.

Discover how nebulaONE can bring secure, scalable AI to your healthcare organization, at www.nebulaone.ai and request a demo with an SME today.

The post Democratizing AI for All: Transforming Healthcare with nebulaONE® appeared first on Cloudforce.

Why? Because creating an AI agent is not just about wiring a Large Language Model (LLM) to a chat window. It requires careful design, governance, and iteration to ensure the agent behaves predictably, scales reliably, and aligns with business goals. 

At Cloudforce, we help clients move beyond prototypes to deploy secure, governed, and impactful AI agents. 

Why Building AI Agents Is Hard 

Many enterprise AI initiatives stall before reaching production. When building agents, the challenges are even steeper: 

• Vague roles: Agents with unclear responsibilities produce inconsistent or untrustworthy results. 

• Unverified data sources: Unvalidated connections introduce errors and compliance risks. 

• Lack of governance: Without monitoring, versioning, and iteration, quality and reliability of outputs quickly erodes. 

• Cost overruns: Agents that aren’t tuned for efficiency can rack up unnecessary token spend. 

These are not just technology problems, they are problems with design, alignment, and process. Enterprises need a structured approach to building impactful AI agents. 

A Framework for AI Agent Building 

Capturing Requirements 

Every effective agent begins with discovery. This is where teams align on what the agent is supposed to do and why it matters. 

• Functional requirements: What tasks should the agent perform? 

• Non-functional requirements: What security, compliance, or performance constraints must be respected? 

• Prioritization of needs: Which needs are must-haves vs. nice-to-haves? 

• Integration landscape: What systems, APIs, or knowledge bases should the agent access? 

Equally important is understanding user intent and context: 

• Which business goals or KPIs will the agent influence? 

• When and where in the workflow will users engage the agent? 

• What should the agent do when questions are unclear or off topic? 

These early decisions help shape the foundation for everything that follows. 

Formulating the Agent 

Once requirements are clear, the next step is blueprinting the agent’s personality and scope. 

• Define agent role: Describe the agent’s identity, tone, and task framing. 

• Understand business flow: Determine where the agent fits into existing processes. 

• Incorporate data sources: Prescribe what FAQs, PDFs, APIs, or CRM systems are available for the agent to reference. 

• Use guardrails: Add safety nets around sensitive topics like PII/PHI. 

• Consider ethical implications: Ensure tone is inclusive and professional. 

• Determine confidence thresholds: Decide how certain the agent should be before giving an answer

Careful formulation ensures the agent is more than just a “chatbot,” but rather a designed system with a clear purpose. 

Agent Design 

This is where the agent’s core parameters are configured. The four core areas of agent design are: 

1. System Message: Defines the agent’s identity, task, and tone
   Example: “You are a professional admissions advisor. Respond concisely, cite official sources, and maintain a friendly tone.” 
2. Context Connections: Determines what data sources the agent can access and when. File libraries, APIs, MCP servers, and web search are common options. 
3. Model Selection: Choose the correct model based on reasoning complexity, latency tolerance, and cost profile that fits your use. 
4. Behavioral Tuning: Shapes variability, creativity, and consistency by defining parameters like temperature, top-p, and frequency penalties. 

Together, these levers influence how predictable, trustworthy, and efficient the agent becomes. 

Evaluating Your Agent 

Agents must be tested continuously to ensure continued effectiveness and reliability. We recommend six dimensions for evaluation: 

1. Token Efficiency: What is the average cost per successful interaction in using your agents? 
2. Latency Benchmarks: How responsive are the endpoints you use? 
3. Hallucination Rate: How often do models or agents output incorrect or fabricated responses? 
4. Relevancy: Does the output match the user’s intent? 
5. Completeness: Are responses thorough enough to resolve the request? 
6. Conciseness: Are answers shorter without losing value? 

Evaluation should not be a one-time task. Like any enterprise system, agents improve through monitoring, iteration, and feedback loops. 

Dos and Don’ts for Success 

Do: 

• Document iterations and what worked. 

• Continuously test agents with edge cases. 

• Share prompt patterns across teams. 

Don’t: 

• Use vague agent roles, leading to unpredictable behavior. 

• Rely on unverified data sources. 

• Deploy without monitoring or feedback loops. 

These simple practices often mark the difference between an agent that quickly fails and one that matures into a trusted enterprise tool. 

How Cloudforce and nebulaONE® Simplify the Process 

Building AI agents is complex, but it doesn’t have to be chaotic. That’s why we created nebulaONE, a secure, Azure-native platform that allows organizations to build, brand, and govern custom AI agents without code. 

With nebulaONE, clients can: 

• Deploy securely within their own Azure tenant with full compliance, RBAC, and quota controls. 

• Orchestrate multi-agent workflows with patterns like handoff and ask-another agent. 

• Monitor adoption, cost, and reliability through built-in analytics. 

nebulaONE ensures enterprises don’t just experiment with agents; they deploy them securely, predictably, and with confidence. 

The post Building AI Agents That Work: A Practical Guide for Enterprises  appeared first on Cloudforce.

This capital injection comes amidst a period of explosive growth for Cloudforce. nebulaONE now serves over 3 million users across 90 institutions globally—including the University of Oxford, UCLA, University of Maryland, and London Business School—with the company now deploying to several new organizations every week. The funding will accelerate the global expansion of nebulaONE, extending its mission to provide secure, equitable “AI for All” to students, faculty, and researchers worldwide, while rapidly scaling operations in healthcare—where the company has already landed its first half-dozen customers following HIPAA certification earlier this year—and the broader public sector.

Cloudforce’s nebulaONE has emerged as the definitive solution for institutions grappling with the complexities of generative AI adoption. Built exclusively on Microsoft Azure, the platform offers a secure, “bring-your-own-model” interface that allows organizations to deploy top-tier AI models—from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and more—within their own private cloud tenants. This architecture solves the critical challenges of data sovereignty, privacy compliance (FERPA, HIPAA, GDPR), and cost control that have previously stalled AI rollout in regulated industries.

“We’re interested in the way nebulaONE brings together accessibility, security, and flexibility for users,” said Alwyn Collinson, Head of the AI Competency Centre at the University of Oxford, which began piloting nebulaONE just before the Fall Semester. “At Oxford, we see AI not as a tool of the future but as a capability that needs to be deployed responsibly in the present.” The main-campus instance of nebulaONE was deployed quickly following the success of a separate pilot at Oxford’s Saïd Business School over the summer.

“At Cloudforce, we believe the latest and most capable AI models shouldn’t be a luxury reserved for the few who can afford hundreds a month in subscriptions, or are otherwise willing to trade away their private data for access. With the support of Owl Ventures and M12, Microsoft’s Venture fund, we are aggressively expanding our footprint to ensure that institutions—whether in London, Los Angeles, or Auckland—can rapidly deploy a private AI environment that empowers their people with equitable access to every AI model, without compromising their data. We are building the infrastructure that will power the next decade of discovery, and at a cost no other platform can offer.”
—  Husein Sharaf , Founder & CEO, Cloudforce

The involvement of Owl Ventures highlights the unique position Cloudforce holds in the EdTech ecosystem. Unlike use-case-specific tools that offer niche solutions, nebulaONE provides the foundational infrastructure for entire universities to adopt AI at scale.

“We constantly scour the globe for companies that are not just building tools, but are fundamentally rewiring how education systems operate. Cloudforce has cracked the code on scaling AI infrastructure in a way that satisfies the rigorous security demands of top-tier universities while delivering a user experience that students and faculty love. The numbers speak for themselves: over ninety institutions, double-digit quarterly revenue growth, and a sales velocity that’s accelerating—not slowing. We are thrilled to partner with Husein and the team to bring this secure innovation to millions more learners worldwide.”
—  Lyman Missimer , Investor, Owl Ventures

For Microsoft, the investment via M12 solidifies a longstanding partnership. Cloudforce was recently named Microsoft’s 2025 Education Partner of the Year— standing out amongst over a half a million partners worldwide—a testament to their alignment with Microsoft’s vision for responsible AI.

“Cloudforce has demonstrated an exceptional ability to leverage the Microsoft Azure ecosystem to solve last-mile delivery challenges for enterprise AI. Their nebulaONE platform transforms powerful raw models into secure, compliant, and deployable business assets for the public sector. Our investment reflects our confidence in Cloudforce’s technical rigor and their critical role in driving meaningful AI adoption in education and healthcare that will extend to large organizations worldwide.”
—  Michael Stewart , Managing Partner, M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund)

Cloudforce’s nebulaONE is currently deployed across the US, Canada, UK, EU, Australia and New Zealand. With this Series A, Cloudforce plans to significantly ramp hiring in 2026, launch new vertical-specific AI agents for education and healthcare workflows, and expand into the broader public sector. Their unique business model of wrapping AI platform deployment with expert consulting, organizational change management, and forward-deployed engineers has proven both effective and repeatable, resulting in a noteworthy 100% subscriber retention rate in 2025.

Media Contact: Arija Rahman, [email protected], 202-803-6500

About Cloudforce
As Microsoft’s 2025 Education Partner of the Year and 2024 Supplier of the Year, Cloudforce specializes in deploying secure AI solutions for regulated industries. Their flagship product, nebulaONE®, is the leading AI platform for higher education, serving 3+ million users across over 90 organizations worldwide. For more information, visit www.gocloudforce.com and www.nebulaone.ai.

About Owl Ventures
Owl Ventures is the largest venture capital fund in the world focused on the education technology market with over $2.2 billion in assets under management. The Silicon Valley-based firm invests in the world’s leading education technology companies across the education spectrum encompassing PreK-12, higher education, future of work, and the intersection of EdTech with healthcare and other major industries. The firm has backed seven unicorns and companies serving more than 630 million users across 241 countries. For more information, visit www.owlvc.com.

About M12
M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund, invests in innovative enterprise software and hardware companies globally, with a specific focus on applied AI, business applications, infrastructure, and security. M12 offers portfolio companies unparalleled access to Microsoft’s ecosystem, global distribution channels, and Go-To-Market resources. For more information, visit www.m12.vc.

SOURCE PR Newswire

The post Cloudforce Secures $10M Series A from Owl Ventures and Microsoft to Democratize Safe, Equitable AI in Education, Healthcare, and Beyond appeared first on Cloudforce.

So, I decided to write this one all on my own, which I recognize is completely counterintuitive for an organization that has been redefined by AI in 2025. I would call it a “transformational” year, but that implies we’ve become something entirely different. The truth is we entered this year as an incredible consulting firm, with standout services and a nascent product, delivered by humans that care—and we’re ending the year as a product business, with an incredible platform now available to millions of people globally, delivered by humans that care. What we (and now the broader industry) have realized this year is that AI on its own won’t have the impact most leaders hoped or expected it might. Magic only happens when the humans are taught to fish, and the teachers are a combination of human experts and great tools.  

With that realization in mind, we doubled down on many of the things that made us a great consulting firm, to make us an even greater product business. We collaborated with our partners at Microsoft to document and share incredible success stories, even publishing our first ever joint eBook on the democratization of AI in Higher Education.  We ramped up our Cloud + AI Meetup, quickly becoming one of the most well-attended and highly-rated tech collectives in the DC-metro area, covering topics from AI security to the impacts of AI on healthcare. We hosted AI Agent-building Bootcamps, free for any community member or student to attend and learn hands-on from our SMEs. We visited dozens of university campuses to share our knowledge and hear input directly from students and educators, from east coast favorites like the University of Maryland and Dartmouth College, to Stanford and UCLA on the west coast, to Cambridge, Oxford, and Manchester in the UK.  

We also fed our own curiosities, by attending conferences like EDUCAUSE, HDAA, BETT UK, TechEx, and Microsoft Ignite— while equally feeding our deeply-rooted desire to contribute to other worthy causes, with efforts like biking 100 miles in New Jersey on a hot and damp day in September with “Team Microsoft” to raise awareness (and over $50,000) for the millions of people that battle Multiple Sclerosis every day, or packing hundreds of care packages for those in need this holiday season. And we were rewarded in more ways than one, earning a coveted Microsoft Partner of the Year Award for the first time in our 15-year history, on top of several best workplaces features in national publications like Fortune and Inc. 

Just as much as we worked tirelessly to contribute to our partners, clients, and community externally, we were arguably working 10x harder internally to address our gaps—building brand new business units like Customer Success and Product Support—and increasing our headcount by 45% to stay ahead of demand and attempt to reduce teammate burnout. All of this while we were simultaneously investing heavily in developing a novel product, our nebulaONE® platform, without no outside institutional investment. To say my role went quickly from CEO to full-time fundraiser would be an understatement, and anyone following the Venture Capital markets would know just how horrific my timing was to “learn on the job” this year.  

The task of convincing VCs that what’s required to win in the age of AI is investing in “people businesses,” which historically has been the anti-pattern of what they seek, was an exercise in learning to hear (and ignore) the words “no,” “not now,” and “get out” more times than I care to admit. It was a great lesson in resilience, and in holding true to a dogmatic belief in our own intuition. Thankfully, as we rounded out the year, we found not one but two venture partners that recognized precisely what we did, that the age of AI will require everyone (Silicon Valley included) to rethink what it takes to build and scale great products and prolific businesses—what it truly means to be labeled a “frontier firm”. Those same partners are now equity owners of a slice of Cloudforce, and we’re eager to share more on all the new doors we’ll be opening together in 2026.  

And that brings me back to the main topic of this reflection: Metamorphosis is change at work, where nothing is lost—only reformed—so what emerges is better and more beautiful, but is still made of what it has always been. That’s precisely how I feel about the company Cloudforce has become this year; bigger, tougher, and clearly more valuable—something that appears entirely novel and unique on the outside, while underneath consisting of the same core components (most notably the people) that made it great all along.  We have a saying around here that you better “catch the butterfly” to ensure the outcome of all your hard work is never lost, and I think now more than ever we’ve caught the butterfly, and it’s only just begun its ascendance. 🦋

Check out a few clips below from our annual holiday getaway, with reflections from the team.

The post Looking Back at 2025: A Year of Metamorphosis appeared first on Cloudforce.

Recently, a portion of Cloudforce’s Customer Success team spent a week facilitating on-site training sessions for six of our clients throughout the UK. Joined by our VP of UK & Europe, we showed up in service of ensuring our international clients felt empowered when considering the use and implementation of nebulaONE®, Cloudforce’s multi-modal Generative AI platform built on Microsoft Azure. 

Stop 1: The University of Manchester 

Our opening workshop focused on showing roughly 50 faculty and staff members how to build an agent within their private environment. Unbeknownst to us, Manchester had recently hired someone to lead their AI strategy. She stressed the need to pair our enthusiasm for adoption with a clear baseline for risk assessment and responsible use.  

Our presence put us in the position to ensure our messaging was in alignment with their overarching goals. Anyone who has sat in a meeting only to realize that the key players needed to optimize the agenda aren’t actually on the call knows how critical it is to be in conversation with the people in a position to optimize implementation.  

Stop 2: The University of Surrey 

After a session on Surrey’s AI adoption plan, one remark from the Digital Productivity Services Manager stood out:

This is the most exciting development since application streaming launched in 2007.

Quite frankly, it may be one of the best quotes of the entire trip. Obviously, we want our clients to be dazzled with nebulaONE, but that’s even more important when we’ve crossed the pond to make it happen! Their conversation around adoption was also one of the most passionate I’ve ever witnessed. It’s not uncommon for different roles within an institution to have conflicting ideas of what best serves it, but it’s illuminating to see real– time exchange where all parties are unabashedly invested in the goal of AI for All and the University’s ambitious Vision 2041 Strategy.  

Stop 3: Imperial College London 

After the executives had an opportunity to connect, my teammate Garrett and I worked with their staff and students to create a Twin Digital Correspondence Agent. Through intentional prompt engineering, attendees came to realize how added guardrails or language could better inform the agent’s output. One noted how their agent ended a drafted email with, “Kind Regards,” something she’d never say.  

After further clarifying the words she was less likely to use, she was awed by how aligned the agent’s language was with her own. As a technical trainer, the pivot from confused tinkering to empowered creating is my key performance indicator.  

Stop 4: London Business School 

London Business School is where our VP of UK & Europe, Danny Attias, previously worked, so the pressure to wow this audience felt particularly pronounced. The room was filled with graduate students eager to find themselves on the edge of innovative AI solutions and asking all the right questions. 

 In preparation for an upcoming promptathon being held on their campus, we extended the conversation on agent creation to also include the importance of data cleaning, data security, and the utilization of API connection with Jupyter Notebook. In the weeks ahead, we’ll continue to host office hours in support of their competition, but establishing ourselves as a helping hand in person was invaluable.  

Stop 5: University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School 

In every session, we enter with the understanding that there may be a variety of experience levels present. In this space, there were so many questions asked in an effort to really understand the scope of what nebulaONE could do, how to create an agent, and the best way to support each participant in their specific roles and responsibilities.  

Our proximity afforded us the opportunity to break through a threshold that would have been easy to maintain had our interactions been contained to the screens of our computers.  

Stop 6 on Our UK Tour: University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School 

For our last leg, we came in prepared to discuss advanced use cases but were quickly reminded of the need to adapt and be flexible. For all our excitement to deep dive, being mindful of the differences and comfort with utilizing AI means a willingness to change the pace when the group, at large, requires more attention to detail.  

At Judge Business School, their inquiries reflected a desire for widening our scope as compared to deepening it. Questions moved through an array of topics, and we were diligent about allowing their curiosity to lead while staying the intended course. 

Every opportunity to train people on nebulaONE comes with its own set of perks and challenges, underscoring the need to keep people at the center. Their experience drives ROI, because no product feels user-friendly if its delivery ignores the user‘s motivations. Likewise, our goal of “AI for All“ works best when partnered with hosts who share that mission.  

If you’re at an institution that values equitable access and is seeking to use GenAI tools to deliver transformative value, know that our team isn’t only aligned but we’re eager to support. 

Let’s explore what AI adoption could look like for your organization. Connect with our team to discuss training, strategy, and responsible GenAI implementation.

The post AI for All: Insights from On-Site Training Across the UK appeared first on Cloudforce.

What began as a vision to democratize secure AI has become a worldwide movement, with leading universities, school systems, and healthcare organizations on three continents trusting nebulaONE to provide private, compliant access to generative AI.  

At the same time, nebulaONE’s installed user base has surpassed 3.3million users, a testament to the platform’s ability to deliver secure, scalable AI adoption across entire institutional communities. From students and faculty to researchers and healthcare professionals, millions of people now have access to cutting-edge AI capabilities while their institutions maintain complete control over sensitive data. 

Global Reach, Local Control 

Our global expansion reflects growing recognition that institutions worldwide face the same fundamental challenge: they need enterprise-grade AI capabilities, that also maintain security, privacy, and often regulatory compliance. Cloudforce’s nebulaONE solves this challenge by deploying entirely within each organization’s own Microsoft Azure environment, ensuring data never leaves institutional control while providing access to leading AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and more. 

This architecture enables compliance with diverse regulatory frameworks across regions, from HIPAA in the United States to GDPR in Europe and privacy regulations in Australia and New Zealand. Institutions on every continent can adopt AI confidently, knowing their data remains secure within their own cloud infrastructure. 

Scale That Matters 

Cloudforce’s nebulaONE being deployed to more than 40 new universities and surpassing 3.3 million users in FY25 alone represents more than just an impressive milestone. It demonstrates that secure AI adoption works at scale when institutions maintain control and prioritize responsible deployment. Students are learning more effectively, researchers are accelerating discoveries, healthcare professionals are improving outcomes, and administrators are streamlining operations, all powered by AI that upholds privacy and compliance requirements. 

The user base spans prestigious institutions including Oxford University, London Business School University, the University of Maryland system, Prince George’s County Community College, and dozens of other leading organizations around the world. Explore the latest customer announcements and deployments on our Insights page. 

Momentum Building 

With 350+ new deployments planned for 2026, nebulaONE’s global expansion continues to accelerate. 

As institutions globally recognize that AI adoption requires both innovation and responsibility, nebulaONE is positioned to lead the transformation of education and healthcare on a truly global scale. 

Learn more about how institutions worldwide are deploying secure AI with nebulaONE at www.nebulaone.ai and request a demo with an SME today.  

The post Cloudforce’s nebulaONE® Surpasses 3.3 Million Users as Global Expansion Reaches Three Continents appeared first on Cloudforce.

The partnership, rolled out as My AI Surrey across the University community, is delivered using the Cloudforce nebulaONE^® platform – a secure, scalable, multimodal generative AI platform built on Microsoft Azure.

Jon Ward, Chief Information Officer at the University of Surrey, said:

“Following a successful pilot programme in the Surrey Business School and several of our professional services departments, we are delighted to bring My AI Surrey to every member of our community. This partnership demonstrates our commitment to be forward-looking, people-centred and secure in the face of the most transformative technology transition in our lifetime.

We are confident that our community will be able to use this tool to shape this technology around their needs.”

Surrey now joins a growing network of universities advancing responsible AI. This deployment builds on themes highlighted in the Microsoft and Cloudforce AI Innovation Guide for Higher Education, bringing secure, equitable AI directly to its campus.

Danny Attias, VP of EU & UK at Cloudforce, said:

“This partnership shows what’s possible when forward-thinking universities and industry come together. Surrey’s people-centred approach to technology is exactly what the sector needs right now. By combining that vision with Microsoft’s innovation and our nebulaONE^® platform, we’re helping make responsible, inclusive AI a reality across the European higher education landscape.”

The platform will offer different benefits across the University:

• Students will get personalised study support, faster access to resources and intuitive tools to improve learning.
• Academics will have intelligent research assistance, and technology to enable new teaching methods that scale across disciplines.
• Professional Services will benefit from automation of routine tasks and insights to support decision-making.

Professor Annika Bautz, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Education at the University of Surrey, said:

“We want our students to have every advantage as they prepare for their careers – and that means giving them the tools, skills and technological confidence they will need in a world where AI is already part of professional life.

We will be working closely with our student community to understand how they are using the powerful tools My AI Surrey gives them access to, what is working and what needs to change. Their feedback will shape how My AI Surrey develops. What matters most is that AI tools support, rather than replace, rigorous learning. Students still need to think critically, develop their own ideas and master their subjects, but they can now do so supported by AI. Employers are looking for students with the confidence and critical skills to use AI effectively and responsibly. Our graduates are amongst the most employable in the UK, and we’re determined to ensure that they acquire AI literacy to enhance that fact further.”

For Cloudforce media enquiries, contact: Arija Rahman | [email protected] | 202-803-6500
For University of Surrey media enquiries, contact: [email protected]

Source: This announcement was originally distributed via EIN Presswire

The post University of Surrey invests in personalised AI for staff and students in partnership with Cloudforce and Microsoft appeared first on Cloudforce.

It’s time to sprinkle some seasonal cheer across the galaxy—Cloudforce’s Cosmic Cookie Challenge is here! If you received one of our Gingernaut Holiday Kits, get ready to craft a frosty, fun, out-of-this-world creation 🚀

Here are the official rules:

Who Can Enter 

• Anyone who received an official Cloudforce Gingernaut Holiday Kit.  

• Internal team submissions can include family members collaborating with a staff member. 

• One entry per person. 

Your Gingernaut 

• Each submission must feature your decorated Gingernaut cookie(s) with a staged scene. 

• Use the gingerbread mix and astronaut cookie cutout from your kit. 

• Extra decorations beyond the kit are allowed—get creative! 

Staging Your Scene 

• Make it festive, frosty, funny, or cosmic! Snow globes in space? Gingerbread moon landing? Candy-cane jetpacks? All are welcome. 

• We’re judging the full moment—your Gingernaut plus its setup. 

How to Submit 

• Post a photo of your Gingernaut scene as a comment under the original LinkedIn post by Friday, December 26, 2025. 

Voting & Advancing 

• The top 5 submissions with the most reactions will advance to the next round. 

• A separate LinkedIn post will allow the audience to vote on their favorite Gingernaut scene. 

Grand Prize 

• The submission with the most votes in the final round will choose one of:
  🎮 Microsoft Xbox Series X Special Edition (2TB)
  🎮 Microsoft ROG Xbox Ally handheld 

✨ Let your Gingernaut shine and your creativity blast off—may the most cosmic cookie win! 🌌

Need a spark of creativity? Check out the inspo below!

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The pilot of around 200 research, teaching and professional services staff in academic departments is an extension of Oxford’s ongoing strategic partnership with Microsoft. It builds on an initial deployment of the nebulaONE platform by the Saïd Business School in Oxford, this summer, and follows a rollout to all staff and students of ChatGPT Edu, along with access to Microsoft Copilot Chat, Google Gemini and NotebookLM.

The new gateway service from Cloudforce has been developed in collaboration with Microsoft. It enables the provisioning of various large language models (LLMs) through a single, secure, private environment, which can be tailored to a university’s research, academic, and operational requirements. Users have the flexibility to explore a range of AI models in a customisable ‘workshop’ environment and select the most appropriate tool for any given task.

The new service is designed to enable users to start leveraging AI capabilities from day one, whatever their level of technical competence. It offers access to different AI models and providers within a single secure environment enabled by Microsoft Azure technology, and scope for new AI models and capabilities to be incorporated in future, as technologies evolve. Use of the gateway will enable the university to safeguard its sensitive and proprietary data, eliminating the inherent risk associated with using public chatbots.

Mark Bramwell, Head of Strategic Digital Partnerships in the University’s Digital Governance Unit, and Chief Digital and Information Officer at Saïd Business School, said: ‘AI adoption is rising rapidly, and offering inclusive access to a range of secure generative AI platforms, tools and agents is a key part of our evolving digital approach. This summer we were pleased to work with Cloudforce to enable access to nebulaONE for our business school professional services staff, faculty and researchers. Now Oxford is expanding that provision to trial it with a group of academics and researchers, and professional services colleagues in the wider University, to explore its potential for enhancing the way we work and interact with AI.’

Responsible AI Development

Through its existing provision of generative AI accounts, training and guidance, the University of Oxford has highlighted the importance of ensuring safe and responsible use of AI for work and study from a range of perspectives, including information security and data protection, academic integrity, health and welfare, and appropriate use in different academic disciplines.

‘At Oxford, we see AI not as a tool of the future but as a capability that needs to be deployed responsibly in the present, with training and guidance on appropriate use’, said Alwyn Collinson, Head of the University’s dedicated AI Competency Centre. ‘We’re interested in the way nebulaONE brings together accessibility, security and flexibility for users. These are key pillars for ensuring that every member of the University who wishes to can develop their AI skills and harness the latest technology to innovate, inquire, and lead.’

Participants in the new pilot will have the opportunity to access a range of secure AI agents through Cloudforce’s new service. In return, they will provide valuable insight to guide the gateway’s future features, integrations and development priorities, to make sure it continues to meet the needs of world-class institutions.

As the pilot develops, there is scope to progressively introduce additional functionalities, tailored specifically to the needs of the university community.

Empowering Academic Excellence and Operational Innovation

Previous pilots of generative AI at Oxford have revealed a range of use-cases in different parts of the university, including enhancing academic research capabilities, streamlining administrative operations, and supporting teaching and learning.

By trialling the new gateway service, Oxford is joining a growing cohort of forward-thinking institutions across the globe who are making similar commitments. As more universities follow Oxford’s lead, it is hoped that the network effect will drive further collaborative insights, collective learning, and shared innovation across the sector.

‘We are thrilled to welcome Oxford to the rapidly expanding network of leading universities embracing inclusive, secure provision of AI,’ said Jen Wyatt, Director of Education for Microsoft UK. ‘The university’s commitment to meaningfully advancing the conversation around responsible AI integration in education sets a high bar and accelerates the momentum we are seeing in the sector, worldwide. Insight from this pilot will help to guide an innovation pathway for other institutions to follow and we hope it will inspire a wave of secure AI adoption across the UK and beyond.’

‘Oxford’s influence in the global Higher Education ecosystem cannot be understated,’ said Husein Sharaf, Founder and CEO at Cloudforce. ‘Their voice and leadership are crucial to shaping the approach of hundreds of other top-tier institutions in the US, UK, and beyond as we all collectively navigate the AI journey.’

To find out more about how institutions are partnering with Microsoft and Cloudforce on AI acceleration, visit https://aka.ms/MSFTEDU-Cloudforce-nebulaONE.

About Cloudforce
Cloudforce is a global leader in secure AI for higher education, healthcare, and enterprise organizations and is Microsoft’s 2025 Education Partner of the Year. Its flagship product, nebulaONE^®, provides a private, integrated, customizable gateway to every GenAI model and capability, enabling organizations to responsibly scale AI adoption with confidence.
For media enquiries, contact: Arija Rahman | [email protected] | 202-803-6500

About the University of Oxford
Oxford University has been placed number 1 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for a record ten consecutive years. At the heart of this success are the twin pillars of ground-breaking research and innovation and a distinctive educational offer. Oxford is world-famous for research and teaching excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. It helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of its research, alongside its personalised approach to teaching, sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions.

Original Source: https://www.einpresswire.com/article/871053906/oxford-to-trial-new-genai-gateway-service-from-microsoft-and-cloudforce

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