Microsoft has a new AI poster child in Anthropic – and it’s about time

Microsoft’s cooling relations with OpenAI have been well documented over the last 18 months. While the duo were initially lockstep in leading the generative AI boom, they’ve been slowly drifting apart – and it seems Microsoft has a new poster child in Anthropic.

With the launch of Cowork for Copilot, the integration of Anthropic’s popular Claude Cowork tool with the tech giant’s flagship AI service, Microsoft is finally divesting itself – at least in some capacity – from OpenAI and looking to pastures new.

This latest development is but one in a number of signs indicating it’s been on the lookout for a new leading partner in the AI space.

As ITPro previously reported, Microsoft was exploring the possibility of integrating third-party alternatives to power Microsoft 365 Copilot as far back as January 2025.

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The tech giant insisted at the time that OpenAI would continue to be a leading partner on frontier models, but in hindsight this was the first major crack in the duo’s happy family veneer.

September saw Microsoft finally rip off the bandaid in this regard, signing a deal with Anthropic to use its Claude AI models alongside OpenAI’s.

OpenAI has become a liability

It’s hardly surprising Microsoft has been looking elsewhere given the aggravation OpenAI has caused over the last two years. The first clear signs of strain came with the farcical leadership debacle which saw Sam Altman ousted and then return within a matter of days.

That situation was a PR nightmare for Microsoft, and CEO Satya Nadella was reportedly furious at the events.

That should have been – and very well might have been – the first signs for Microsoft that OpenAI was something of a liability. The company’s activities since then haven’t exactly been reassuring, either.

As I’ve mentioned in previous columns for ITPro, the company doesn’t appear to have a clear cut idea of what it wants to be.

Acquisitions aimed at making a charge into the hardware domain highlighted this lack of cohesion and the company’s seemingly endless balancing act catering to both the consumer and enterprise markets has been exhausting.

And that’s before you get into the array of circular deals and lavish spending plans OpenAI has committed to, which based on recent reports appear to be cracking at the seams.

Simply put, OpenAI has been so deeply integrated across Microsoft’s core product ranges that if the company even so much as wobbles in its ambitious plans over the next five years, it could spell disaster for the tech giant. Having a backup option – and an industry leading one at that – makes perfect sense.

Anthropic has proven it’s more than capable of going toe-to-toe with OpenAI over the last two years, consistently outperforming its great rival on model performance across repeated upgrades.

Microsoft’s key industry competitors, AWS and Google Cloud, both saw the value of Anthropic early on, investing heavily in the company in their own attempt to keep pace with the dominance of the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership during the early stages of the generative AI race.

Nobody wants a walled garden

Crucially, Microsoft cozying up to Anthropic makes more sense when one considers the demands of enterprise customers. Nobody wants a return to walled gardens like the early days of the cloud.

Many businesses are now working on a hybrid or multi-cloud setup, for example, meaning they’ve grown accustomed to flexibility and choice.

Admittedly, these are two areas in which Microsoft doesn’t have a squeaky clean record. European regulators and trade groups alike would probably have a meltdown seeing “choice”, “flexibility”, and “Microsoft” uttered in the same sentence.

Regardless, giving users another option when using its Copilot service adds to the allure for enterprises – and it comes at a crucial time. In the company’s Q2 FY2026 earnings call, Microsoft hailed record momentum with Microsoft 365 Copilot, which it claims now boasts over 15 million paid users.

Deeper integration of Anthropic models across core products just gives prospective customers more to think about.