Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) revealed today it is adding Anthropic’s Claude artificial intelligence models to Microsoft 365 Copilot in addition to its OpenAI models.
“Customers can now use both OpenAI and Claude — starting in Researcher and Copilot Studio, and coming to more experiences soon,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a post on X. “Our multi-model approach goes beyond choice. It’s all about bringing the best AI from across the industry to Copilot, tuned for work and tailored to every business.”
The technology from Anthropic — which is backed by Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG)(GOOGL) and others — will break a stranglehold that OpenAI has had with Microsoft since the former invested billions of dollars in the latter in January 2023. OpenAI’s tech has been used for new features in Microsoft’s productivity suite of software that includes Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint.
Specifically, Microsoft is adding Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude Opus 4.1.
Claude in Researcher begins rolling out today through Microsoft’s Frontier Program and Microsoft 365 Copilot-licensed customers who choose to opt in. This can help users build go-to-market strategies, analyze emerging product trends, or create a comprehensive quarterly report, for example.
Users can also build agents with Claude in Copilot Studio, which is also available starting today.
It was reported earlier this month that Microsoft will pay Amazon Web Services to access the Anthropic models as AWS is the sole provider of Anthropic’s models.