Microsoft Embraces Anthropic's Claude for Copilot After In-House AI Falls Short

Microsoft is banking on Anthropic's Claude models to fix a critical weakness in its flagship Copilot AI assistant, integrating the rival company's technology into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook after internal demonstrations showed Claude outperforming OpenAI's models at enterprise office tasks. The shift represents a dramatic pivot from Microsoft's historical focus on OpenAI, which the company has invested over $13 billion in, and comes as customers have complained that Copilot struggles to automate routine work in spreadsheets and presentations.