Microsoft The company is said to be looking beyond OpenAI to power its flagship AI product, Microsoft 365 Copilot. The tech giant is said to be exploring the use of alternative language models. This represents a shift from the company’s previous focus on early access to OpenAI models, which was a major selling point when 365 Copilot launched in 2023.
Why is Microsoft making this change?
Citing sources, Reuters reported that Microsoft is also seeking to reduce 365 Copilot’s reliance on OpenAI due to concerns about speed for enterprise users. The company also aims to reduce its reliance on OpenAI technology and potentially reduce costs.
For this reason, Microsoft is said to be training its smaller models, such as the recent Phi-4, and customizing open-weight models to improve the efficiency and performance of the 365 Copilot.
“We integrate different models from OpenAI and Microsoft depending on the product and experience,” a Microsoft spokesperson told the agency, while emphasizing that OpenAI remains a “frontier models” partner.
The goal is also to pass these savings on to the end customer, and Microsoft leaders, including CEO Satya Nadella, are said to be tracking the effort closely.
The move mirrors similar efforts in other Microsoft business units. For example, GitHub recently added models from Anthropic and Google as alternatives to OpenAI’s GPT-4o. Microsoft’s consumer chatbot, Copilot, now also uses internal models in conjunction with OpenAI technology.
Tension between Microsoft and OpenAI
Several reports have indicated that the close partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI may face some challenges. Just one year after Microsoft played a key role in bringing Sam Altman back to his position as CEO of OpenAI, their relationship appears to be showing signs of strain.
While acknowledging the natural tensions in any partnership, Suleiman hinted at the diverging paths between the two companies.
“Every partnership has stress. It’s healthy and normal. I mean it’s a completely different business for us. It works independently and partnerships evolve over time… Partnerships evolve and they have to adapt to what works at the time, so we’ll see how that changes,” Solomon said. During the next few years.”
