Microsoft swaps OpenAI models for MAI

Microsoft has started routing some Copilot prompts in Excel and Outlook to its own MAI models instead of systems from OpenAI and Anthropic, according to a Bloomberg report published July 7. The shift covers tens of thousands of prompts a week in the spreadsheet and email products, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the work. Microsoft declined to comment to Bloomberg. OpenAI and Anthropic did not immediately comment in the social posts that circulated after the report. The move adds detail to a broader reset in the Microsoft-OpenAI relationship. On April 27, CNBC reported that Microsoft and OpenAI amended their partnership so Microsoft’s license to OpenAI intellectual property would no longer be exclusive, while OpenAI could serve customers across cloud providers and would continue revenue-sharing payments through 2030 under a cap. CNBC said Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019. (finance.yahoo.com) ### Where is Microsoft actually making the switch? Excel and Outlook are the products named in the July 7 Bloomberg report. Bloomberg said those applications had previously relied more heavily on OpenAI and Anthropic models, and that MAI usage there had not been previously reported. The report also said the internal swap still represents a small share of Microsoft’s overall AI usage. (cnbc.com) GitHub Copilot and Teams are also part of the same in-house model push. Bloomberg reported that Microsoft’s MAI models are available within GitHub Copilot, and that a Microsoft-built transcription model is expected to start being used with Teams and other products in the coming months. ### Why is Microsoft doing this now? (finance.yahoo.com) Cost is the reason cited in the reporting and in Microsoft executives’ own recent comments. Bloomberg reported that Microsoft is trying to reduce AI spending and avoid being left paying whatever leading AI labs decide to charge as usage grows across Copilot and other products. (finance.yahoo.com) Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft AI’s chief executive, said in June that the company was trying to reduce spending on Anthropic by using more MAI models, according to Bloomberg. Bloomberg quoted Suleyman as saying: “We pay a lot of money to Anthropic — so our goal is to reduce and ultimately eliminate that cost.” ### What is MAI, and how far along is it? (finance.yahoo.com) Microsoft said at Build 2026 that it was announcing seven new MAI models across text, image, voice and speech in Microsoft Foundry. Microsoft’s Build 2026 coverage separately described the announcement as “Launching seven new MAI Models,” and the company’s Foundry blog said the lineup expanded first-party offerings beyond earlier image, voice and transcription releases. (finance.yahoo.com) Mustafa Suleyman has been leading that effort since March 2024, when Microsoft said he would head a new Microsoft AI organization focused on Copilot and other consumer AI products and research. That structure matters because the July 7 report described MAI not as a lab project but as software already handling production workloads inside major Microsoft applications. (news.microsoft.com) ### Does this mean Microsoft is breaking with OpenAI? Microsoft remains OpenAI’s primary cloud provider under the amended April agreement, CNBC reported, and Microsoft keeps a license to OpenAI intellectual property through 2032 even though the license is no longer exclusive. CNBC also reported that the companies continue to describe the relationship as core and strategic despite strains as they move onto each other’s turf. (blogs.microsoft.com) Sam Altman said on CNBC on July 9 that Microsoft is a major OpenAI customer, according to CNBC’s transcript page for the interview. The available search result identifies the interview and date, though the transcript text was not fully retrievable in the tool output. ### What should readers watch next? (cnbc.com) Microsoft’s next concrete checkpoints are product-level disclosures. Bloomberg said a Microsoft transcription model is expected in Teams and other products in coming months, while Microsoft’s Build 2026 materials already list the seven new MAI models now available through Foundry. Further public detail is likely to come from Microsoft product documentation, earnings commentary, or additional remarks from Suleyman, OpenAI and Anthropic. (cnbc.com) (finance.yahoo.com)