Embracing the Frontier Firm

How BCN is building a human-led, agent-operated way of working, and how you can transform your business too.

AI isn’t coming ‘some day’. It’s here now. And it’s already changing how work gets done, from the way we write proposals and analyse data to how we support customers.

Microsoft calls the companies that are moving fastest with AI ‘Frontier Firms’. It says they are leading the way for human-led, agent-operated organisations, using AI and intelligent agents as digital colleagues for human teams, freeing people up to focus on the work that needs judgement, creativity and leadership.

At BCN, we’ve taken that seriously and have moved beyond ‘trying AI’. We’ve started rebuilding how we work around AI, with the governance, training and real-world use cases that turn Copilot from a shiny tool into something that actually moves the needle on performance.

We break down what Microsoft means by ‘Frontier Firm’, show how we’re already operating that way, and share a practical starting point for leaders who want to see new levels of productivity, value and performance in their own organisation.

BCN in action: What ‘Frontier’ looks like, day to day

1.Make AI useful where people actually work.

Enrich employee experience

For us, that meant starting where our teams saw everyday friction. The day-to-day admin that quietly eats whole mornings, taking our teams away from the work they feel genuinely inspired by. We looked at processes around onboarding, internal knowledge, meeting admin, drafting, summarising, and searching.

And this is what we put in place:

• Copilot-supported onboarding, so new starters can self-serve answers (policies, processes, set-up steps) through approved internal knowledge sources.
• Internal knowledge bots to reduce frequent ‘where do I find…’ and ‘what do I need to do…’ resource drains.
• A Copilot Champions programme, so adoption doesn’t stall after rollout, with tips for real usage, peer support and good practice shared continually.

Why it matters for SMBs: You don’t need AI everywhere to see impact, you just need it in the 5-10 workflows that swallow time and effort, every day.

Practical starting point:

Pick one team (sales, service desk, HR, finance) and identify:

• The top 10 questions people repeatedly ask
• The top 10 ‘admin’ tasks they dread doing

Then build one approved knowledge source and one Copilot agent workflow around those.

2. Reinvent customer engagement

Use AI to raise the quality of customer conversations, not just speed up replies

For most SMBs, customer service isn’t a grand strategy, it’s the byproduct of a million small moments. How prepared you are, how well you know your customer, how quickly you respond, how consistently you deliver on your promises. AI helps when it’s woven into those moments. When AI agents do the invisible heavy lifting behind customer interactions, people can spend more time doing the more human things such as thinking, advising and supporting.

This is what we put in place:

• Copilot summarises customer history for account managers (meetings, emails, actions), so they can go into conversations with a solid understanding of prior contacts and current expectations.
• AI-assisted triage, so customers are directed more quickly to the right person for a better first response.
• Practical demonstrations for clients, showing how AI can support key workflows. This included ThemisCase for legal firms, showing how agents and AI for law firms can reduce document-heavy drudgery and free professionals to focus on advice and outcomes for

Why it matters for SMBs: AI doesn’t replace relationships, it protects them. That’s because the win isn’t faster replies, it’s better conversations at speed, with the right context and the right outcome every time.

Practical starting point:

If you’re not sure where to begin, start with clarity on your customer-facing metrics:

• ‘How fast do we respond?’
• ‘How consistent is our service?’
• ‘Do we enter every conversation fully briefed?’

Then pick one: meeting prep, first-response triage or a knowledge base that lets customers self-serve simple answers.

3.Reshape business processes

Automate the work that slows you down, with guardrails in place.

Frontier Firms are embedding AI into their core operations, they rebuild the back office with it so work doesn’t get stuck in inboxes and lost during handovers .At BCN, we started looking for the work that added little value but needed doing regularly. For example, chasing approvals, copy-and-pasting between systems, archiving documents and designed AI-assisted workflows to take it off people’s plates.

This is what we put in place:

• Workflow automation across finance, IT and compliance, to free our people up for work that drives progress. For example, our procurement process used to involve filling in forms and awaiting email approvals; now an AI agent reads the incoming purchase request, checks it against budget and policy, and either approves it straight away or flags it for human review.
• AI agents in first-line IT support triage, so clients are immediately directed to the right technician with the right skillset, and conversations are more helpful from the get-go.
• Microsoft Purview AI is keeping an eye on data compliance, flagging potential issues before they can become problems. This is a great example of how AI can be used to strengthen governance.

Why it matters for SMBs: When you don’t have endless headcount, the biggest wins can generally be found in the back office. Automation cuts delays and helps you stay responsive, consistent and compliant as you grow.

Practical starting point:

Don’t worry about a big transformation. Start with one, measurable process that will shift the needle. Look at things like:

• Approvals and order processes that take too long
• Inconsistent documentation
• Manual reporting that requires too much legwork

Pick one workflow and automate 60-80% of it, with human input reserved for tasks that need more bespoke handling.

4.Bend the curve on innovation

Build faster, test more ideas, and deliver sooner.

The final pillar of Microsoft’s Frontier Firm is about using AI to accelerate product development and innovation. Most organisations have a backlog of ‘we should…’ ideas that never make it out of the boardroom. AI helps you create space for innovation by removing the grunt work from building, testing and iterating, helping teams prototype faster, validate sooner and spend more time on what actually differentiates the work.

This is what we put in place:

• Our developers are using tools like GitHub Copilot to reduce routine coding and free them up for tasks that require unique logic. AI now writes up to 50% of code for routine modules, so our teams can get creative with architecture solutions.
• AI-assisted product management and project planning, so our product leads have more bandwidth to think big, to design better features and improve user experience, rather than chasing status updates.
• AI-assisted hackathons for prototyping, which supports a much faster cycle of innovation. This cycle, conceive, prototype, iterate, is further accelerated by having AI generate chunks of new code, content or designs on the fly, so our human teams can focus on big-picture creativity.
• New services and business models, built on and using AI. Our Pathfinder service, for example, uses AI alongside human insight to help businesses identify technology opportunities in their own organisations, helping them move from idea to proven value, faster.

Why it matters for SMBs: When you don’t have a huge R&D team, AI and automation becomes your force multiplier, helping you test ideas quickly, prove value fast, and invest in the ones that will deliver progress, fast.

Practical starting point:

Set yourself a 30-day innovation sprint that looks at:

• 1-2 business problems
• 1-2 small prototypes
• 1 set of success measures (time saved, customer response time, cycle time, quality consistency)

Run it like a mini pilot: build something small, measure the impact, and only then decide what’s worth scaling up and rolling out.

How Frontier Firms see real business results

Being a Frontier Firm is all about finding intelligent ways to create real business impact. At BCN, building a human-led, agent-operated way of working has changed how we run, what we deliver, and how quickly we can move.

1. Time back – to reinvest in higher-value work

Copilot and custom AI agents have taken a chunk of the ‘busywork’ off people’s plates. Drafting, summarising, searching, onboarding and handovers are now all being carried out by agents, saving our teams 500 hours of productivity in just one month. That equates to roughly £15k of value from a £1.5k investment. But the real win isn’t the minutes saved – it’s what we’re able to do with them. Our teams are now free to deliver faster, respond better, and take more time and space over the work that needs human judgement and drives our business forward.

2. Value clients can see straight away

AI clicks when it’s attached to real workflows, not theoretical ones. Demos like our ThemisCase solution for law firms help clients see what ‘agent-operated’ looks like in practice. And when legal professionals can see the reduction in document grind, they can also visualise having more time to focus on advice and client outcomes.

Demonstrating this sort of vision and execution as a Frontier Firm means we are solving real pain points for our clients and saving them hundreds of hours through AI transformation. This naturally opens the door to conversations around further pilots and wider adoption.

3. Closer partnerships with Microsoft

As we’ve built technical capability and demonstrated our commitment to innovation, we’ve strengthened how we work with Microsoft to give our clients even greater confidence in what we do. As a leading Microsoft Partner, we stay close to what’s coming next and put it into practice early, we also share what we’re learning with clients, whether that’s through access to Microsoft funding or with events and conversations. We want our clients to move with confidence too, and for us, that means building with Microsoft.

4. Workforce evolution as new roles emerge

AI transformation is a skills shift. We’ve seen people across BCN naturally step into new roles as AI orchestrators, helping their colleagues with advice around prompt writing, setting up workflows, agent supervision and communicating safe ways for working with AI. We believe adoption sticks best when it’s peer-to-peer and in the flow of real work. These new AI champions have become innovators, boosting morale and stoking buy-in, and we anticipate formalising these roles in the near future.

5. Employee engagement and talent attraction

One of the biggest wins for BCN as a Frontier Firm has been around people. When people feel like they’re learning, evolving, and working with modern tools with a future-looking purpose, energy goes up. In many ways, AI has become part of our employer story. Internally, we’ve seen more optimism about the future as AI becomes part of how human work gets done rather than a replacement for people. Externally, this optimism is showing up in recruitment too, as candidates increasingly reference our AI work and thought leadership as a reason they want to join BCN. In a tight talent market, being known as a Frontier Firm that uses AI properly helps us attract and keep the best people.

The moves we’ve made to infuse AI throughout BCN are driving real-world results, every day. From faster deliveries and new business streams to happier clients and more empowered employees, being a Frontier Firm has turned us into our own best case study for AI transformation. The impact is undeniable. The results are real.

Overcoming challenges on the Frontier

We didn’t become a Frontier Firm by simply rolling out AI tools and hoping for the best. We hit the same hurdles every organisation undergoing transformation hits, from regulatory compliance and skills gaps to tricky change management. Throughout our transformation, we found practical ways to overcome the challenges as they cropped up, and put steps in place so we can better help our clients navigate them too.

Compliance, security and governance

The challenge: The moment you introduce AI into everyday work, the questions around safety start: Is it secure? Is it compliant? Are we protecting sensitive data? Without clear guardrails, there’s a risk people will either avoid the tools or use them in ways that create risk.

What we did: We treated governance as the starting point, not the finishing touch. That meant tightening permissions, clarifying what data was accessible, and building oversight into the way we work. We also made the most of Microsoft’s security and compliance capabilities, including Purview, to strengthen monitoring and flag potential issues early.

Skills gaps and confidence

The challenge: AI doesn’t deliver value just because it’s available. If people don’t use it, or don’t use it well, you won’t see the results you’re looking for, and adoption will stall.

What we did: We invested in practical enablement across the business, running training sessions, giving simple guidance, and using real examples tailored to different teams and roles. By focusing education on ‘how to work with AI’ (prompting, reviewing, improving outputs) rather than ‘how to switch Microsoft Copilot on,’ we empowered people to get the best from their digital agents – and that fostered genuine excitement about AI’s potential.

Change management and adoption

The challenge: Even great tools aren’t worth the investment if they don’t stick. People revert to old habits, early excitement fades, and AI ends up on the shelf gathering dust.

What we did: By empowering people with AI we made adoption deliberate. Wwe created momentum across the business initially with quick wins, visible leadership support, and a Copilot Champions approach. This meant adoption became peer-led, continuous, and rooted in day-to-day workflows that delivered immediate and undeniable impact.

Responsible AI and accountability

The challenge: To move fast, you need trust. That means being clear on where AI can speed up work, as well as where humans will stay firmly in control.

What we did: We set clear expectations and guidelines for review, oversight and accountability, so everyone knows where they stand. AI helps us draft, summarise and recommend; people decide, validate, and own the outcome.

Why this matters for clients

Because we’ve worked through these challenges ourselves, we’re not guessing the next best step. We know exactly what it takes to become a Frontier Firm, and we can help you get there quickly, with your people onboard from day one. We’ll help you avoid the false starts, build the right foundations, and move from AI ambition to measurable outcomes safely.

Become a Frontier Firm

Becoming a Frontier Firm doesn’t have to mean going ‘all in’ overnight. It means starting in the right place, with a clear outcome, the right guardrails, and a first use case that proves the value quickly.

If you’re ready to join those organisations that are setting the pace and move from AI curiosity to practical impact, BCN can help you take the next step.

Frontier Firm workshop

Bring your leaders together to map where AI and agents can make the biggest difference, fast. You’ll leave with a clear set of priority opportunities.

AI readiness and governance assessment

Make sure the foundations are in place. We’ll check your data access, permissions, security and compliance, and come up with a bespoke plan for safe adoption.

Pilot an AI use case

Pick one process or team and run a focused pilot with clear measures for success.

Copilot deployment, training and adoption

Roll Copilot out properly, with enablement that sticks. We’ll help you support your teams with a Copilot adoption toolkit including, training, champions and a simple way to measure usage and impact.

Ongoing partnership

As you scale, we’ll help you build on what works, with automation, agents, data and AI solutions that keep pace with your goals.

Ready to see what ‘human-led, agent-operated’ could look like in your organisation?

Let’s map out your first 90 days, and build momentum from there.