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ZDNET's key takeaways
Microsoft will pay Anthropic for access to its AI models.
They'll go toward new features in Office 365 platforms.
Microsoft and OpenAI are distancing themselves from one another.
Microsoft will slacken its dependence on OpenAI through a new partnership with Anthropic, The Information reported on Tuesday. The deal will enable Microsoft to embed Anthropic's AI systems into Microsoft 365 (formerly Office) platforms like Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
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This marks a turning point for Microsoft, which has otherwise been largely (though not entirely) reliant on OpenAI's technology to power its consumer-facing AI efforts. The company has also played a major role in fueling OpenAI's ascent to the forefront of the AI race by investing more than $13 billion in the company since 2019.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
A growing rift
Microsoft and OpenAI have been drifting apart lately amid mutually shifting business priorities.
OpenAI, for its part, is reportedly planning to launch its own platform to compete with LinkedIn, which Microsoft owns. The company is also slated to start mass producing its own AI chips in partnership with Broadcom starting next year, which would make it less dependent on Microsoft's Azure for AI model training and inference (when a model is in use and actively making predictions based on user requests).
As OpenAI works to restructure itself as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), Microsoft is reportedly in talks with the start-up to secure a greater stake than it currently owns and to ensure that it would continue to have access to OpenAI's systems if and when the ChatGPT maker achieves artificial general intelligence (AGI), a still vaguely defined concept.
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OpenAI is also reportedly now paying Google for access to its cloud computing software, further distancing itself from Microsoft and Azure.
OpenAI and Microsoft did not immediately reply to ZDNET's requests for comment.
Microsoft weighs its options
Despite the mounting tension between the two companies, the new Microsoft-Anthropic partnership is more practical than personal, according to The Information.
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After comparing the performance of Anthropic models like Claude Sonnet 4 with the latest models from OpenAI, Microsoft has reportedly concluded that in some cases, Anthropic's are better suited for optimizing the Microsoft 365 user experience, the report added.
News of the partnership arrives less than one week after Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement in a class action lawsuit filed by three authors after a judge ruled that the company had illegally used copyrighted books to train its AI models. It's the largest settlement in the history of US copyright cases.