内容来源：https://news.microsoft.com/source/latam/features/ai/cemex-luca-bot-ai-agent/?lang=en

内容总结：

全球建材巨头西麦斯（Cemex）正全面推广一款名为LUCA Bot的AI财务助手，该工具已深刻改变公司高层的工作与决策方式。这款基于微软Azure OpenAI等先进技术构建的智能助手，目前已面向约100名高级管理人员开放，能够通过自然语言对话实时提供原本需耗时数日才能获取的机密财务数据。

LUCA Bot接入了涵盖十年历史、超过120项关键绩效指标的全球运营数据库，每月更新，支持按地区、国家和工厂进行颗粒化分析。西麦斯高管表示，该工具不仅将财务信息查询从“以日计”压缩至“一键可得”，更通过全天候可靠的数据支持，显著提升了决策速度与运营效率。

“它让财务信息透明度产生了质的飞跃，使我们能快速激活运营杠杆。”西麦斯信息技术副总裁福斯托·索萨指出。全球财务控制负责人海梅·马丁内斯则强调，统一可靠的数据源避免了以往因信息渠道差异导致的决策偏差。

在2024年销售额达160亿美元的竞争压力下，西麦斯将AI应用视为提升运营效率的核心战略。公司计划将AI助手推广至中基层管理者，未来还将推出面向全体员工的公开数据版本。目前LUCA Bot月均处理查询400-500次，数据分析准确率达82%，已被高管团队视为“不可或缺的成员”。

中文翻译：

全球建材巨头、总部位于墨西哥的西麦斯公司正在推广一款人工智能财务助手，它正在彻底改变高管的工作、规划和决策方式。这款名为"LUCA机器人"的助手已供约100名高层管理者使用。它基于数千条内部经济财务数据（多为机密信息）进行训练，包括月度销售额以及水泥、预拌混凝土和骨料工厂的运营表现。该工具专为快速解析西麦斯财务动态而设计，帮助管理层在关键业务问题上更快做出反应。

公司表示，LUCA机器人通过多渠道提供财务关键绩效指标，支持西麦斯的数字化管控战略，推动数据驱动文化建设和持续业务绩效分析。从执行委员会成员到中层管理人员，授权用户可通过网页和移动端的自然语言聊天界面与机器人交互。数据颗粒度足以支持对全球任何业务线进行深度分析。

经过成功试用期后，该工具于去年正式上线。西麦斯高管称其具有变革意义，既节省宝贵时间，又能全天候获取可靠的内部财务信息。管理层指出，通过简化内部流程，LUCA机器人能快速回应紧急问题，提升整体运营效率，同时提供月度目标的实时进展。

"它提升了财务信息透明度，让我们能有效调动运营杠杆。"西麦斯信息技术副总裁福斯托·索萨表示，"这种自助式工具有助于发现运营效率提升空间。"对他而言，LUCA机器人代表着"与信息互动的新机遇，通过智能提示实现更丰富的数据对话"。

有高管在马德里出差时成功调取关键财务数据——尽管墨西哥同事当时处于离线状态。另有高管在数秒内获得详细财务分析，为季度执委会汇报奠定了坚实基础。在使用LUCA机器人之前，高管们往往需要打电话、查阅冗长邮件链或耗费数小时甚至数天翻阅报告。如今只需轻点一下。

"这关乎敏捷性、机遇和简洁性。"西麦斯全球管控负责人海梅·马丁内斯强调，"它比多人协作答疑高效得多，关键优势在于建立了统一信息源——不再需要依赖特定联系人。"

在竞争激烈的市场提升效率

对于2024年销售额达160亿美元的西麦斯而言，投资人工智能是在高度竞争环境中提升效率的重要举措。这家跨国企业在四大洲运营着50多家水泥厂和1000多座预拌混凝土工厂，在美国市场占据重要地位。高管透露，去年上任的新任首席执行官海梅·穆吉罗已将提升运营效率列为重中之重。面对原材料成本上涨、关税压力和竞争加剧等全球性挑战，拥抱人工智能等技术对保持领先地位至关重要。

索萨指出："技术是实现管理层制定的运营效率战略的先决条件。若无法清晰掌握全球资产生产率，就难以达到预期效率水平。"公司领导层表示，这款面向高管的AI助手只是起点，正计划将其功能延伸至中基层管理，使工厂操作员等员工能追踪设备卡车闲置时间等指标。索萨称这种扩展旨在优化运营效率，进而提升财务表现。

西麦斯还计划为全体员工推出独立助手，采用上市公司信息和经核验的外部数据。马丁内斯解释："这将带来双重优势：员工获得更多信息，我们也能了解他们的需求——为后续沟通做好充分准备，实现双赢。"

负责财务监督和报告的西麦斯管控团队在开发LUCA机器人过程中发挥了关键作用。早在2016年，该团队就推出了Luca内网数据库，供高管查询数千条内部运营财务记录。人工智能技术将这一理念推向新高度，实现了数据与洞察的即时获取。这款AI助手以该数据库命名，而数据库名正是致敬15世纪被誉为"会计学之父"的意大利修道士卢卡·帕乔利。

技术架构与使用成效

LUCA机器人基于微软Foundry平台构建，采用Azure OpenAI模型，融合Azure AI搜索、Azure Cosmos数据库、Azure应用服务、Microsoft Teams和Azure存储等技术，提供先进的数据自动化分析功能。西麦斯将数据安全存储于Azure租户，通过特定指令、提示词和Azure OpenAI设置确保回复可靠性并降低错误率，仅保留用户名、提示词和反馈等基础会话数据。

据IT架构总监卡洛斯·曼蒂利亚介绍，该机器人处理120多项关键绩效指标，按地区、国家和工厂细分，涵盖十年数据及数千个数据点，每月更新信息，访问权限严格限定于每位高管授权区域和业务线。其界面沿用微软365 Copilot设计风格，西麦斯员工对此已十分熟悉。

该助手基于超过3.5万个问题进行训练，并根据高管反馈每日更新，内置60多个预置提示（如按地区对比西麦斯息税折旧摊销前利润与预算）。去年精选高管小组参与测试时曾存在不少疑虑。马丁内斯回忆，周末常有高管聚在一起用刁钻问题测试系统。如今该工具通过口碑传播在公司内部获得认可——近期某委员会会议上，有高层使用LUCA机器人引发同事好奇询问，随后这些同事都成了常驻用户。

马丁内斯透露，目前LUCA机器人月处理400-500次查询，数据分析准确率达82%，数据检索准确率达92%。团队每周用500个预设问题基准评估回复准确性。曼蒂利亚自豪地表示："现在大家把LUCA机器人视为团队不可或缺的成员。"

题图：西麦斯IT架构总监卡洛斯·曼蒂利亚（中）与团队成员在墨西哥北部蒙特雷总部合影。摄影：奥克塔维奥·霍约斯。

英文来源：

Mexico-based Cemex, a global building materials company, is rolling out an AI-powered financial agent that is already transforming how top executives work, plan and make better informed decisions.
About 100 senior leaders already have access to the agent, called LUCA Bot. It is trained on thousands of internal, often confidential, economic and financial data points – like monthly sales and cement, ready mix and aggregates plants’performance. LUCA Bot is also specifically designed to quickly provide insights into Cemex’s finances to help executives act faster on critical business matters.
LUCA Bot supports Cemex’s digital controllership strategy by providing access to financial key performance indicators (KPIs) across multiple channels, which promotes a data-driven culture and ongoing business performance analysis, the company says.
Authorized users – from executive committee members to mid-level officers – can interact with LUCA Bot through a natural language chat via web and mobile. The data is granular enough to allow detailed analysis of any business line’s performance worldwide.
After a successful trial period, the agent was officially launched last year. Cemex’s executives say the tool has been a game changer, saving them precious time and providing access to reliable internal financial information around the clock.
By streamlining internal processes, LUCA Bot makes it easier to get fast answers to pressing problems, boosting efficiency across the company, Cemex executives point out. It also provides them with real-time updates on monthly goals.
“It’s an improvement in financial information visibility that enables you to activate operational levers,” says Fausto Sosa, Cemex’s information technology vice president. “It’s a self-service tool that should help to find operational efficiencies.”
For Sosa, LUCA Bot represents “an opportunity to interact with information, to have a more enriching dialogue with data thanks to prompts.”
Another executive accessed critical financial data during a trip to Madrid – even while colleagues in Mexico were offline. A third received a detailed financial analysis within seconds, providing a solid foundation for a quarterly executive committee presentation.
Before LUCA Bot, executives often relied on phone calls, lengthy email chains or hours – sometimes days – of searching through reports to find the information they needed. Now, it’s just a click away.
“It’s all about agility, opportunity and simplicity,” says Jaime Martínez, Cemex’s head of global controllership. “It’s far more efficient than having lots of people answering questions, and one major advantage is having a unified source of information– you no longer have to rely on who you ask.”
Boosting efficiency in a competitive market
For Cemex, a company with $16 billion in sales in 2024, investing in AI is part of a broader drive for efficiency in a highly competitive environment. The company is a global powerhouse, operating more than 50 cement plants and over 1,000 ready mix plants across four continents and maintaining a strong U.S. presence.
Cemex’s new CEO Jaime Muguiro– who took office last year – has made improving operational efficiency a top priority, executives say. And embracing technologies like AI is essential to staying ahead amid global challenges, from rising material costs to tariffs and intensifying competition.
“Technology is a prerequisite for achieving the operational efficiency strategy set by top management,” Sosa notes. “It’s difficult to reach that level of efficiency without visibility into the productivity of my assets globally that allows us to take decisions.”
The executive-focused AI agent is only the starting point, according to company leaders. Plans are underway to extend its capabilities to lower management, enabling employees like plant operators to track metrics, such as truck idle time, at their facilities. This expansion aims to optimize operational efficiency and, in turn, drive stronger financial performance, Sosa notes.
Cemex also plans to launch a separate agent for all employees, using public company information and verified external data.
“This would give us two advantages: they’d have more information, and we’d learn what they want to know – helping us to be better prepared for the next call. It’s a win-win,” Martínez explains.
The Cemex controllership team, responsible for financial oversight and reporting, played a key role in developing LUCA Bot. Back in 2016, the team introduced Luca – an intranet database that allowed executives to search for thousands of internal operational and financial records. AI offered a way to take the concept further, enabling instant access to data and insights. The AI agent was named after the database, which pays tribute to Luca Pacioli, the 15th-century Italian monk often called the father of accounting.
A member of the team
Built in Microsoft Foundry with Azure OpenAI models, LUCA Bot leverages Microsoft technologies such as Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure App Service, Microsoft Teams and Azure Storage, to deliver advanced data automation and analysis.
Cemex stores data securely in its Azure tenant. The agent applies specific instructions, prompts and Azure OpenAI settings to provide reliable replies and reduce errors. Only basic session data – username, prompts and feedback – is saved.
LUCA Bot processes over 120 key performance indicators, broken down by region, country and plant, covering a decade of data and thousands of data points, according to IT architecture director Carlos Mantilla. Updates occur monthly, with access restricted to each executive’s authorized region and business line.
Mantilla says LUCA Bot’s interface follows the Microsoft 365 Copilot design, which was already familiar to Cemex’s employees.
The agent was trained on more than 35,000 questions and is updated daily based on executives’ feedback. It also includes over 60 preloaded prompts, such as comparing Cemex’s EBITDA by region against budget.
A select group of executives took part in the beta program last year. There was a fair amount of skepticism at the time. Over weekends, executives would gather to put the agent to the test with challenging questions, Martínez recalls.
The tool has since gained traction through word of mouth within the company. At a recent committee meeting, a senior leader used LUCA Bot, prompting curious colleagues to ask about it. They have since become regular users.
Today, LUCA Bot is handling 400 to 500 queries per month, Martínez says, with 82% accuracy for analysis and 92% for data. The team uses a weekly benchmark of 500 predefined questions to assess response accuracy.
“They now see LUCA Bot as just another member of the team,” Mantilla says proudly.
Top image: Carlos Mantilla, Cemex IT architecture director, accompanied by members of his team at Cemex’s headquarters in Monterrey, northern Mexico. Photo by Octavio Hoyos.