Building a responsible future, together: Microsoft’s 2023 Impact Summary

We’re living in an era marked by an unprecedented pace of technological innovation. With it comes incredible opportunity to transform how we address some of humanity’s most urgent and persistent challenges: expanding equitable economic opportunity; keeping people safe in a digital world; protecting and advancing inclusive, fundamental rights; and accelerating progress against climate change.

At Microsoft, our sense of responsibility matches the opportunity ahead.

As AI has emerged to capture attention and conversation, Microsoft is continuing and expanding our work in responsible AI—work we started more than six years ago—to help ensure everything we create is developed and used in a responsible and ethical manner and designed to benefit everyone.

Our 2023 Impact Summary outlines our approach to building a responsible future with all of our stakeholders, because we know it will take more than a single company or industry to generate impact at the scale our world needs.

How we’re moving forward

In the past year, we’ve asked ourselves a series of questions to consider how we can deliver the most impact against each of our mission commitments to expand opportunity, earn trust, protect fundamental rights, and advance sustainability.

The resulting goals inform how we build and develop products, shape business processes and policies, support our customers, engage in partnerships, and activate our global ecosystem of employees, partners, suppliers, and customers to help people and communities around the world thrive.

For example, our goal to help train and certify 10 million people from underserved communities with in-demand digital skills by 2025 inspired us to launch the first Professional Certificate on Generative AI in June 2023. And in partnership with nonprofits and educational institutions, we’ve expanded our cyber skilling programs to 28 countries.

As we work to democratize participation in the digital economy, we understand the importance of being able to trust the technology and tools behind those opportunities. So we’re going beyond applying responsible AI principles across our tech stack to empower our customers and partners to do the same. Our new Responsible AI dashboard is designed to help users flow through model debugging and decision-making processes efficiently while ensuring their technology aligns with our Responsible AI principles.

Microsoft customers and partners also play a valuable role in helping us meet our goals to protect fundamental rights by closing accessibility and connectivity divides. In FY23, we delivered accessibility knowledge to more than 750,000 learners in collaboration with LinkedIn Learning, TeachAccess, and the global Microsoft disability community. Since 2017, we’ve worked with internet providers, governments, nonprofits, and other companies to bring high-speed internet access to more than 63 million people around the world, plus access to digital skills training and solutions to unlock the power of technology for their livelihoods and communities.

And when it comes to environmental sustainability, one of the most defining issues of our time, we continue to make important progress towards our goals of becoming carbon negative and water positive, achieving zero waste, and protecting and preserving ecosystems. Our supply chain plays a significant role here, which is why we’re committed to our industry-leading Responsible Sourcing Program. I’m thrilled that in FY23, 40 new Microsoft suppliers transitioned to using renewable energy, and 12 of those achieved 100% renewable energy.

Learning and looking ahead

These are just a few of the many examples throughout this report of how our commitment to our mission guides our path forward, with a deep sense of responsibility to people and the planet. We recognize the immense opportunity AI brings not only to our business but to our world, and we are committed to harnessing its power responsibly to drive positive impact for all.

As we make progress across each of our goals, we will continue to learn from our experiences and share those lessons along the way. With focused, principled determination, we can build a more sustainable, accessible, and equitable world—and I’m proud of the work we’re already doing to get there, together.

Brad Smith

Read more: Satya Nadella's Annual Shareholder Letter