Faster decisions at Cemex: How an AI agent is reshaping executive workflows
Executives don't need more reports. They need answers. Cemex, the Mexico-based building materials leader, built LUCA Bot to do exactly that-put clear, finance-grade insights in front of decision makers in seconds.
About 100 senior leaders now use the agent daily to pull KPI-level data, compare performance across regions, and track progress against monthly goals without waiting on emails or digging through spreadsheets. It's a practical shift: fewer bottlenecks, faster actions, and a single source of truth.
What LUCA Bot delivers to leadership
LUCA Bot is trained on thousands of internal, often confidential, financial and operational data points-covering cement, ready-mix, and aggregates plants worldwide. It's accessible via natural language chat on web and mobile, with role-based access by region and business line.
Executives use it to analyze performance by line of business, surface trends instantly, and prepare presentations with reliable context in minutes. "It's all about agility, opportunity and simplicity," says Jaime Martínez, Cemex's head of global controllership.
From slow loops to instant clarity
Before LUCA Bot, leaders relied on phone calls, long email chains, and hours spent hunting through reports. Now, a single prompt returns granular insights that used to take days. One executive pulled critical financials while traveling in Madrid-while colleagues in Mexico were offline. Another generated a data-backed analysis for an executive committee meeting in seconds.
"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."
Why this matters strategically
Cemex generated $16 billion in sales in 2024 and operates more than 50 cement plants and over 1,000 ready-mix plants across four continents, with a strong U.S. presence. In a market pressured by material costs, tariffs, and competition, speed and clarity matter. New CEO Jaime Muguiro has made operational efficiency a top priority-and technology is the lever.
"Technology is a prerequisite for achieving the operational efficiency strategy set by top management," Sosa notes. Visibility across assets is what turns strategy into action.
What's inside the agent
Built in Microsoft Foundry with Azure OpenAI-and connected to Azure AI Search, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure App Service, Microsoft Teams, and Azure Storage-LUCA Bot brings real data to the point of decision quickly and consistently. Data is stored securely in Cemex's Azure tenant. Only basic session data (username, prompts, feedback) is saved.
- 120+ KPIs, broken down by region, country, and plant
- A decade of data and thousands of data points
- Monthly updates; access scoped to each executive's remit
- Trained on 35,000+ questions; updated daily with user feedback
- 60+ preloaded prompts (e.g., compare EBITDA by region vs. budget)
Performance is tracked weekly against 500 predefined questions. Current accuracy: 92% for data retrieval and 82% for analysis. Usage sits at 400-500 queries per month and growing.
Adoption lessons from the rollout
The team borrowed familiar patterns. The interface mirrors Microsoft 365 Copilot, lowering friction; leaders looking to understand the underlying platform can explore Microsoft AI Courses. A small beta group pressure-tested the agent on weekends, trying edge cases. Curiosity spread by word of mouth: leaders saw the agent in action during meetings, asked for access, and became regular users.
"They now see LUCA Bot as just another member of the team," says Carlos Mantilla, IT architecture director.
Expanding the impact beyond the C-suite
LUCA Bot started with senior leadership. Next, Cemex plans to give frontline managers and plant operators access to operational metrics-like truck idle time-to tighten execution where it matters; this is a practical example of AI for Operations. The goal: use the same shared data model to connect financial outcomes to daily actions.
The company is also preparing a separate agent for all employees, powered by public company information and verified external data. As Martínez explains, it offers two clear benefits: broader access to information and a feedback loop that reveals what employees actually need.
Governance that builds confidence
Executives trust tools that are reliable and contained. LUCA Bot restricts access by role, region, and business line. It applies clear prompting rules and Azure OpenAI settings to reduce errors. The controllership team, which originally built the Luca intranet database in 2016, stays close to the agent's evolution and accuracy benchmarks.
Result: leaders get consistent answers no matter who asks-and far fewer back-and-forths across teams.
The executive playbook: How to replicate this momentum
- Start with one critical domain. Finance is ideal-high signal, high leverage, and straightforward to govern.
- Anchor to a single source of truth. Centralize KPIs and make definitions explicit to avoid conflicting answers.
- Match the user's mental model. Use familiar UI patterns and preloaded prompts for common questions.
- Measure trust weekly. Track data vs. analysis accuracy with a fixed question set; publish results.
- Tighten the loop. Collect feedback inside the agent and ship updates on a fixed cadence.
- Expand by role, not by feature. Move from executives to operators with clear, scoped access and practical metrics.
What changed at Cemex
- Executives stopped waiting on answers-and started acting faster.
- Meetings shifted from "where's the data?" to "what do we do next?"
- Financial oversight got tighter, with the same KPIs visible to everyone who needs them.
- The organization built a repeatable pattern for AI-enabled decisions beyond finance.
Quotes that sum it up
"It's an improvement in financial information visibility that enables you to activate operational levers." - Fausto Sosa, Information Technology VP
"It's all about agility, opportunity and simplicity." - Jaime Martínez, Head of Global Controllership
"They now see LUCA Bot as just another member of the team." - Carlos Mantilla, IT Architecture Director
Further reading
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