Microsoft trains sales team to disparage OpenAI and Anthropic

Microsoft appears to be prepping its sales team to get more competitive with the other major players in the AI industry. At an internal meeting on Tuesday, the company’s executives outlined a plan for salespeople to negatively compare AI products from companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic to its own, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The meeting, billed as a strategy session for the new fiscal year, reportedly leaned heavily on pitching the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of Microsoft’s in-house models against those of its rivals.

“Everyone else is selling parts — we’re selling the full end-to-end system. That’s the story that we all need to get out there and tell in FY27,” Executive Vice President Jay Parikh reportedly told the room. Executive Vice President Jacob Andreou reportedly went further, delivering a presentation comparing Copilot directly to Anthropic’s chatbot Claude.

According to Bloomberg, Andreou noted that, when it came to performance within Microsoft’s office apps, Anthropic’s model was “slower and less accurate, and lacked the proper security integrations,” Bloomberg writes. TechCrunch has reached out to Microsoft and Anthropic for comment and will update this story if we hear from either outfit. A company coaching its sales team on how to trash-talk competitors isn’t particularly surprising.

What’s more notable is who Microsoft is now targeting — the same companies it has long depended on for the AI models powering its own products. It’s just the latest move in that direction. A report earlier this month found that Microsoft has been swapping OpenAI and Anthropic’s models out of flagship apps like Word and Excel in favor of its own — a cost-cutting move, according to that report.

There was a time when Microsoft and OpenAI were attached at the hip. The two companies entered into a very unique agreement years ago that saw Microsoft provide capital and compute to OpenAI while allowing Microsoft to enjoy exclusive access to OpenAI’s API and models. The companies amended the partnership in April, dropping the exclusivity clause and clearing OpenAI to sell to Microsoft’s competitors.

That revised relationship may help explain the sales team’s new pitch. Microsoft has been battling a less-than-optimal stock outlook over the past year, as investors question the company’s massive spending on the buildout of its AI business. Talking up how competitive those products actually are is likely an attempt to calm those waters and build confidence in Microsoft’s long-term AI plan.

Why this matters: This development signals a significant shift in Microsoft's strategy, as it moves to directly compete with OpenAI and Anthropic. The company's efforts to promote its in-house models as more efficient and cost-effective could have far-reaching implications for the AI industry. For developers and businesses, this means a more competitive market for AI solutions, potentially leading to better products and services.