Celonis wins Microsoft 2026 Global ISV Partner award

Celonis has won Microsoft's 2026 Global ISV Partner of the Year Award, placing it among the technology group's top partner winners selected from more than 4,500 nominations worldwide.

The award recognises work built on Microsoft technology and highlights Celonis' role as an independent software vendor in Microsoft's partner ecosystem. Microsoft said the programme honours partners delivering customer outcomes through its cloud, AI, services and devices portfolio.

Based in Munich and New York, Celonis develops process intelligence software that companies use to examine how operations run and where they can be improved. Its work with Microsoft has focused on connecting those operational insights with Microsoft's cloud and AI tools.

The partnership became more visible in May, when Microsoft launched Microsoft Agent 365 and named Celonis as a launch partner. The product is designed to give companies a single place to observe, secure and govern AI agents used across an organisation.

Celonis adds a layer that links those agents to operational outcomes. The company said users can monitor the business impact of individual agents in real time, including metrics such as lower cost per claim or faster cycle times.

The integration is also intended to identify what Celonis calls "ghost loops", in which one agent's actions prompt another to reverse or duplicate work. In one example cited by the company, one agent merges purchase orders while another splits them, creating unnecessary activity that teams can then stop or adjust through Agent 365.

Marc Kinast, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, at Celonis, said the practical return from AI depends less on the model itself than on the underlying business processes.

"Almost every company is using AI. Very few are getting real returns," Kinast said. "That gap isn't about the model. It's about redesigning your processes from the ground up with AI you can rely on. Microsoft brings trusted cloud and AI technologies. Celonis brings the platform people trust to transform and improve operations. Together, we're helping companies reinvent the way they work."

Partner field

Microsoft said winners and finalists in this year's programme were chosen from thousands of entries across multiple categories and regions. Celonis was recognised in the Global ISV category, which covers software companies building and delivering products with Microsoft technology.

Nicole Dezen, Chief Partner Officer and Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, outlined the company's view of this year's award group.

"Congratulations to the winners and finalists of the 2026 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards," Dezen said. "This year's honorees are harnessing the power of Microsoft Cloud and AI to deliver transformative solutions, accelerate customer success, and expand what's possible. Their ingenuity and impact inspire us, demonstrating what can be achieved when bold vision and technology come together to empower organizations around the world."

Customer use

Celonis said its platform is built around what it calls a Context Model, which maps a company's operations using data from business systems and links that view to strategic goals. The company presents the model as the basis for analysing, designing and operating processes that increasingly involve AI agents.

One example comes from Uniper, the European energy company, which is using an agent built on Microsoft Copilot Studio and informed by the Celonis Context Model to support its HR processes. In this case, the focus is recruiting, where the companies said AI tools can help teams understand the current workflow and apply automation with greater visibility.

"Celonis and Microsoft are helping us build AI assistants that our people can depend on," said Robert Daamen, Head of Process Intelligence CoE at Uniper. "In HR, Celonis gives our AI the context it needs to understand how our hiring process works today, while Microsoft helps lower the barriers to using combined data analytics, process mining, automation and AI. Together, they enable us to make the HR recruiting process more efficient, more reliable, and fully transparent."

The award adds to Celonis' profile at a time when software groups are trying to show that AI systems can be tied to measurable operating results rather than treated as stand-alone experiments. In Celonis' case, that argument rests on linking agent activity to process data and business metrics that companies already track.

For Microsoft, the recognition also underscores the role of partners in extending the use of its AI and cloud products into business functions such as claims handling, procurement and human resources, where companies are under pressure to show clearer returns on technology spending.