Microsoft's AI Push

Microsoft is accelerating its push to compete with OpenAI, its longtime collaborator, by developing its own powerful AI models and exploring alternatives to power products like Microsoft's Copilot bot.

According to reports, Microsoft has developed its own AI 'reasoning' models comparable to models like OpenAI's o1 and o3-mini. OpenAI is said to have refused Microsoft's requests for technical details about how o1 works, stoking tensions between the firms.

Microsoft has also developed a family of models called MAI that are competitive with OpenAI's own, and is reportedly considering offering them through an API later this year. Parallel to those efforts, Microsoft is said to be testing alternative AI models from xAI, Meta, Anthropic, and DeepSeek as possible replacements for OpenAI technology in Copilot.

Microsoft, which has invested around $14 billion in OpenAI to date, has looked to hedge its bets in a number of ways, including hiring DeepMind and Inflection co-founder Mustafa Suleyman to lead the tech giant's AI efforts.

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