Microsoft is now deepening its collaboration with Anthropic, OpenAI’s main competitor, by directly integrating the company’s AI models into Copilot. The move, which goes into effect this week, adds another layer to Microsoft’s growing portfolio of AI partnerships and marks a gradual shift away from its once-exclusive reliance on OpenAI.
Previously, Copilot relied primarily on OpenAI technology, but with this update, enterprise users will be able to choose from a variety of options, including Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.1 and Claude Sonnet 4, depending on the task at hand. Opus 4.1 is designed for heavy-duty tasks like complex reasoning, advanced coding, and system architecture, whereas Sonnet 4 is intended for more routine tasks like large-scale data handling, content generation, and development workflows.
“Starting today, Anthropic models are rolling out alongside OpenAI models in Microsoft Copilot Studio. With the choice of Anthropic and OpenAI models for orchestration, chat, and deep reasoning scenarios in Copilot Studio, you have greater flexibility in how you design and optimize agents and workflows to transform business processes,” the company stated in its blog post.
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The addition comes after a recent agreement to integrate Anthropicá AI into Microsoft’s Office 365 suite, which includes Word, Excel, and Outlook. Microsoft is now collaborating with Anthropic on enterprise products, indicating a clear intent to diversify Copilot’s underlying AI engines, giving businesses more flexibility in developing custom tools and agents.
Analysts say the decision reflects a larger trend: as AI adoption grows, companies like Microsoft are spreading their bets across multiple providers rather than relying on a single partner. This diversification may alter how Copilot evolves in the competitive AI assistant market.