At the end of May, the ALSO Group brought Microsoft partners together in Milan for a two-day onsite hackathon with a single, focused mission – to build Microsoft AI Agents that can become real, sellable solutions for customers. This was the third edition of the ALSO Group hackathons, and the most ambitious yet, with 53 partners from 8 countries, across 14 teams. More international, more diverse, and more inspiring than ever and we are delighted to announce that amongst some stiff MSP competition from around the world, Equity won the challenge!
The task
The format of the challenge intense by design, with 48 hours of focused building and one clear goal: ship a functional prototype by the end of the event. ALSO gave everyone 48 hours of hands-on building; mentorship from ALSO and Microsoft experts; guidance from the experienced hackathon experts from the Garage 48 community; teams of 3 – 4 people, with the ideal mix of business and technical minds
The energy was high from start to finish. Teams dived deep into development, supported by Microsoft and the ALSO Group. From pitch sessions to technical check-ins, the pace was relentless and the results exciting.
Equity’s agent
Our team set out to solve a problem every managed service provider knows well: the time it takes to triage and respond to infrastructure alerts, and we built an autonomous AI agent that:
The result was a process that used to take up to an hour, now happens in minutes. Equity brought together Copilot Studio, Azure Communication Services, and Power Automate to make the agent autonomous, conversational, and ready for real-world deployment.
The team behind it
The Equity team was made up of people from project delivery, engineering, finance, and sales – a mix which represented exactly what the hackathon was about. Alex Hall, joint CEO and founder of Equity said: “Equity is focused on driving cybersecurity and AI as the most critical elements of its managed service proposition, so to build and win this worldclass challenge amongst such strong global competition is testament to the understanding and skills our team have. Winning in Milan against partners from across the globe is a fantastic milestone and the real prize is turning this prototype into a solution our customers can rely on.”
Huge thanks to the ALSO Group, Microsoft, and the Garage48 community for an unforgettable two days. And of course, to the Equity team – it was a fantastic outcome.