Over the years, the relationship between Box Inc. and Microsoft Corp. has evolved beyond pure rivalry to include a measure of cooperation as well. They still compete with one another in file-sharing, but at the same time they provide product integrations to support joint customers.

The companies announced today that they have further deepened their partnership by launching an effort to help organizations better manage the files they keep in the cloud. According to a blog post by Box Chief Executive Aaron Levie, the alliance consists of two main elements.

First, the collaboration provider will start using Microsoft’s network of more than 40 data centers to store customer files. It’s an extension of an initiative dubbed Box Zones that was launched last year to let companies keep information in closer proximity to their international offices. Box so far has relied on IBM Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. for international hosting, partnerships that may be relegated to the back burner in the wake of the deal with Microsoft.

Recode reported that Box will not merely use Azure but also offer customers the ability to have their data kept specifically in the platform, an option not yet available with the other two providers. That’s a major win for Microsoft given how much an infrastructure deal with a web-scale company can be worth. Snap Inc., for example, expects to spend about $3 billion on cloud services over the next few years.

The other aspect of Box’s new collaboration with Microsoft collaboration revolves around artificial intelligence. Levie wrote today that his company will harness the AI services available in Azure to develop new features.

He didn’t go into too much detail, but did make a passing mention of Microsoft’s AI-powered video recognition technology in the paragraph discussing the project. Box might use the Azure Computer Vision API to organize companies’ media content based on factors such as who appears in a clip and thus help users find segments more easily. While it’s at it, the provider could even develop a chatbot with the help of Microsoft’s natural-language processing services to automate other file management tasks.

For the time being, however, Box is keeping a tight lid on the development roadmap. Levie wrote that users can expect to see the first fruits of the partnership with Microsoft in the next few quarters.

Image: Box