Microsoft has started routing some AI tasks in Excel and Outlook to its in-house MAI models instead of relying as heavily on OpenAI and Anthropic, to lower the cost of running AI features.

A person familiar with the matter said MAI models now handle tens of thousands of prompts each week across the spreadsheet and email applications, although they still account for only a small share of Microsoft’s overall AI workload.

A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment.

Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman said in June that the company was trying to reduce spending on Anthropic.

Microsoft has also made MAI models available in GitHub Copilot, while a Microsoft-developed transcription model is expected to roll out to Teams and other products in the coming months.

The shift comes as Anthropic’s Claude models are already available in GitHub Copilot for some paid customers, with higher-tier plans offering premium features and, in some cases, different data-retention terms.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg