The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and Microsoft are taking the next step in their strategic partnership, announcing a plan to transform how financial services professionals interact with data by embedding LSEG’s vast datasets into Microsoft’s AI ecosystem. The collaboration will enable users to build and deploy customised AI agents, or ‘Copilots,’ within their daily workflows, powered by LSEG’s licensed data and analytics.
At the heart of the initiative is the integration of LSEG data with Microsoft Copilot Studio, a low-code platform for creating and customising AI agents. This will allow financial institutions to build sophisticated, agentic workflows that combine LSEG’s deep repository of financial information with the advanced reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs).A crucial technological underpinning of this partnership is the adoption of the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a new open-source standard designed to create a universal connection between AI applications and external data sources. By leveraging an LSEG-managed MCP server, the two firms aim to provide secure, seamless, and standardised access to LSEG’s data, not only for Microsoft’s tools but also for customers’ own proprietary AI systems and other third-party applications.
This move addresses a core challenge in the adoption of generative AI within finance: securely connecting trusted, high-quality data with powerful AI models. The use of an open standard like MCP signals a push towards greater interoperability, potentially reducing the complex and costly integration work that has historically hindered innovation.
The partnership aims to empower financial professionals to compose their own sophisticated AI agents by combining policies, prompts, and tools directly within their everyday applications. This integration of human expertise with LLM reasoning and LSEG’s data is intended to happen in a secure and governed environment. LSEG and Microsoft are already working with initial customers to build the first of these bespoke agents.
David Schwimmer, Group Chief Executive Officer at LSEG, commented on the strategic importance of the collaboration: “LSEG’s partnership with Microsoft is transforming access to data for financial professionals with cutting edge, AI-driven innovation at scale. LSEG customers can build, deploy and scale agentic AI directly into their workflows with secure, seamless connectivity through MCP.”
The announcement builds on LSEG’s ‘LSEG Everywhere’ AI strategy, which is focused on delivering its trusted, licensed data to scale AI development across the financial services industry. The group’s AI-ready content includes datasets stretching back decades, totalling more than 33 petabytes of information.
Nick Parker, Microsoft Chief Business Officer and President, Worldwide Sales & Solutions, added: “Our continued partnership with LSEG underscores a shared commitment to redefining the future of financial services through secure, AI-driven innovation. By combining LSEG’s trusted market data with Microsoft’s cloud and AI capabilities, we’re empowering customers to unlock deeper insights, accelerate decision-making and streamline complex workflows.”
The integration is set for a phased rollout, beginning with LSEG Financial Analytics, allowing firms to start leveraging this powerful combination of data and AI to create a new generation of intelligent tools and workflows.
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