Sonata Software receives sixth Microsoft Inner Circle recognition for its AI work

Enterprise artificial intelligence is entering a new stage. After an initial phase focused on assistants capable of generating content, summarizing information or answering questions, companies are moving toward systems that can connect to their data, interact with applications and execute actions within business processes.

Against that backdrop, Sonata Software has been recognized by Microsoft with the 2026–2027 Microsoft AI Business Solutions Inner Circle award, marking the company's sixth recognition and placing it among Microsoft's leading partners within its global network of business solutions partners focused on artificial intelligence.

The recognition comes as Sonata expands its work across technologies related to enterprise modernization, AI-ready data, AI operations and agentic systems. The company has maintained a relationship with Microsoft for more than three decades and has developed capabilities around technologies including Dynamics 365, Azure, Microsoft Fabric, Power Platform and Copilot.

For Anthony Lange, Chief Revenue Officer at Sonata Software, the development of these technologies is changing how companies compete. "The ability to embrace AI to deliver value and enterprise velocity will differentiate organizations in an AI-led era," Lange said.

The executive argued that this evolution requires companies to move beyond experimenting with artificial intelligence and incorporate it into their systems and operations. "Our sixth Inner Circle recognition reflects the engineering depth we bring to helping enterprises turn AI into measurable business value," he added.

From AI models to enterprise infrastructure

One of the main challenges of implementing artificial intelligence in an enterprise is not necessarily the model generating the responses, but connecting it to the systems where the information it needs to operate is stored.

Customer data may be stored in a CRM, financial transactions in an ERP and operational information across other platforms. At the same time, legacy applications may still support critical business processes. When a company wants an AI tool to go beyond generating text and actually execute tasks, those systems need to be able to work together.

Sonata is focusing part of its strategy on precisely this technology layer. Through Sonata Harmoni.AI, its responsible-first AI tooling, the company brings together capabilities related to AI-led modernization, AI-ready data, resilient AI operations and AI-led service delivery.

The company also works across Microsoft's technology ecosystem. Its capabilities include Dynamics 365, Azure, Fabric, Power Platform and Copilot, covering enterprise applications, cloud infrastructure, data, automation and AI-powered assistants.

This integration is becoming increasingly relevant as agentic AI advances. While a traditional assistant can provide an answer based on a query, an agent can be designed to interpret information, make a decision within defined parameters and execute actions across different systems.

That is the transition Sonata is targeting. Lange said the collaboration with Microsoft is helping enterprises "move from systems of record to systems capable of autonomous action."

The shift means enterprise systems are no longer simply repositories of information. They can become part of environments in which AI actively participates in executing processes. For that to work, companies need to determine what information an agent can access, which applications it can use, what actions it is authorized to perform and how those decisions will be supervised.

An alliance focused on enterprise AI

The recognition also reflects the growing importance of this type of integration within Microsoft's partner ecosystem. Niels Jensen, Microsoft AI Business Solutions ERP Lead in Enterprise Partner Solutions, said Inner Circle members represent Microsoft's top-selling partners worldwide.

However, Jensen emphasized that the recognition goes beyond commercial performance. "But it is more than a sales recognition; it's a community of industry leaders who work closely with Microsoft to accelerate innovation, share experience and shape the future of AI-powered business transformation," he said.

The collaboration between Microsoft and its partners, Jensen added, is intended to advance the development of AI-powered business solutions and deliver results at scale. "The collaboration and commitment to customer success demonstrated by this community helps us advance the entire AI Business Solutions partner ecosystem around the world to deliver transformative business outcomes at scale."

Sonata's strategy around this technology is also reflected in its recent relationship with Microsoft. The company joined Microsoft's Copilot Agents & Platform Engineering Depth Partners program and became a Microsoft Frontier Partner.

These moves expand Sonata's collaboration with Microsoft's Engineering and Product teams to advance and scale agentic AI solutions.

The technological distinction is relevant for businesses. A generative AI system can help an employee analyze a document, for example, while an agentic system could use that analysis to trigger the next step in a process, provided it has access to the relevant systems and the necessary permissions.

This is making technology modernization and AI adoption increasingly connected. A company may have access to advanced models, but if its data is fragmented, its applications cannot communicate with one another or its legacy systems cannot support new integrations, the capabilities of AI will remain limited.

In this environment, Sonata's strategy is to combine different technology layers so that artificial intelligence can be incorporated into existing enterprise processes. The company has more than 6,400 AI engineers and operates with a modernization strategy built around its Platformation™ framework, according to the company.

Microsoft's recognition comes at a time when the industry is moving the conversation from experimentation with artificial intelligence toward its integration into enterprise operations.

For Sonata, the sixth Inner Circle recognition represents the latest stage in a relationship with Microsoft that spans more than 30 years and a strategy focused on combining AI, data, cloud and technology modernization. For businesses, the rise of agentic systems raises a broader question: not only what an artificial intelligence model can do, but whether the technology infrastructure around it is ready to let it do so.