MYOB & Microsoft strike AI deal for small businesses

MYOB and Microsoft have signed a five-year strategic partnership to develop AI tools for small and mid-sized businesses in Australia and New Zealand.

The partnership combines MYOB's business management software with Microsoft's cloud and AI systems. The companies will jointly fund, build and scale new products and internal tools, while Microsoft will provide engineering support to work alongside MYOB's technology teams.

The work will focus on integrating AI into the everyday workflows of small businesses and mid-market customers. The goal is to reduce manual administration, provide financial and operational prompts within existing products, and help users make decisions without relying on separate systems or manual analysis.

One early focus is a set of "AI teammates" for employees and customers. For MYOB staff, the tools are intended to summarise cases and conversations, triage queues and incidents, and draft responses and updates across customer support, finance and engineering operations.

For small business customers, MYOB plans to embed intelligent agents into its software to forecast cash flow, guide compliance readiness and suggest next steps. For mid-market users, new AI functions in its Acumatica platform will include financial insights, natural language queries and document processing.

The agreement also gives MYOB access to Microsoft's AI and cloud stack for deployment and internal use. It plans to use Microsoft Foundry to deploy customer-facing agentic AI, Copilot Studio for employee-built agents, and Agent 365 to govern those systems.

The companies linked the move to the still-early adoption of AI among smaller firms. MYOB cited its Bi-Annual Business Monitor, which found that 29% of SMEs have adopted dedicated AI tools for their business.

Internal rollout

Alongside product development, MYOB will establish an AI Academy with Microsoft's support. The programme is intended to train technology, engineering and customer-facing teams, while setting standards for governance, security and the use of AI agents across products and internal workflows.

This will sit alongside MYOB's existing AI Everyday programme, which is designed to help employees use AI in routine work. The broader aim is to build internal familiarity with the technology as customer-facing tools are introduced.

Simon Noonan, Chief Technology Officer of MYOB, described the agreement as both a technology and workforce investment. "This partnership accelerates AI across our people, culture and operations while co-investing in the engineering talent building the next generation of technology," he said.

"Our vision is for MYOB to be the business hub for Australian and New Zealand businesses. The place where data, workflows and AI come together to help local businesses start, survive and succeed," said Noonan.

"We're building a platform that turns technology and innovation into new ways of doing business - reshaping the future, not just keeping up with it."

Regional focus

The deal is aimed at the Australian and New Zealand market, where MYOB has a large installed customer base across accounting and business management software. It says it serves more than one million businesses across the two countries, placing the partnership squarely in the market for smaller firms and mid-sized organisations seeking more automation in finance and operations.

Microsoft's role includes both technology supply and direct engineering input. According to the companies, this could shorten the time needed to introduce some new features from months to weeks.

The agreement also supports a multi-model approach to AI, allowing MYOB to draw on different AI providers and models available through Microsoft. This is intended to give the software group flexibility as underlying AI models change and as it matches tools to specific tasks in accounting, compliance and business administration.

Steven Miller, Area Vice President of Microsoft Australia and New Zealand, said the work would focus on practical use cases for MYOB customers. "This partnership is about turning responsible AI into practical, everyday impact for MYOB customers, helping them reduce manual work, spot issues earlier, and make clearer decisions," he said.

"Importantly, it will support MYOB's evolution as a Frontier Firm - continuously raising the bar by learning faster, acting with agility, embedding intelligence into how work gets done, and turning innovation into measurable customer impact," Miller added.

"By lifting productivity for small and mid-sized businesses, we can help strengthen economic growth from the ground up across Australia and New Zealand."