Microsoft, looking to reduce AI costs, is starting to replace OpenAI and Anthropic with its own models in software products like Excel and Outlook.<\/p>\n
Tens of thousands of AI prompts in the widely used spreadsheet and email applications are now being completed each week with Microsoft\u2019s internally built MAI models, according to a person familiar with the work. Previously, Excel and Outlook relied more heavily on models from OpenAI and Anthropic, said the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss an internal matter.<\/p>\n
The scale of MAI model usage in Microsoft\u2019s workplace products hasn\u2019t been previously reported. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment.<\/p>\n
While still accounting for a small share of overall AI usage, the move shows Microsoft is making progress in its efforts to build competitive artificial intelligence models at a lower cost. In June, AI model chief Mustafa Suleyman said the company was trying to reduce spending on Anthropic by using more MAI models.<\/p>\n
Microsoft uses massive quantities of AI tokens \u2014 the unit of consumption for AI computing \u2014 in products like its workplace assistant Copilot. For now, the company gets a lot of that technology at a discount owing to its long-standing partnership with OpenAI. But the clock is ticking on that arrangement, and Suleyman\u2019s team is working to make sure Microsoft isn\u2019t left paying whatever the leading AI labs decide to charge. <\/p>\n
The company announced seven new AI models at its annual Build conference for developers in June, including one it says can match the coding abilities of a prior-generation Anthropic model that remains very popular \u2014 Opus 4.6 \u2014 at a reduced cost. \u201cWe pay a lot of money to Anthropic \u2014 so our goal is to reduce and ultimately eliminate that cost,\u201d Suleyman said at the time.<\/p>\n
Microsoft\u2019s MAI models are also available for use within GitHub Copilot, the company\u2019s service for AI-assisted software development. Suleyman has said that a Microsoft-built model for transcription will start being used with the Teams videoconference apps and other products in the coming months.<\/p>\n
Microsoft Philanthropies underwrites some Seattle Times journalism projects.<\/p>\n
\u00a92026 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com<\/a>. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft, looking to reduce AI costs, is starting to replace OpenAI and Anthropic with its own models in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[11001,157,42291,2187,13848],"class_list":["post-100937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-openai","tag-microsoft-layoffs","tag-openai","tag-redmond","tag-washington","tag-wpresize"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}