Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) is a global technology company in productivity software, cloud computing and personal computing. Under Satya Nadella it has made Azure and AI a core strategy, and it is a major partner of OpenAI. Per its own 2025-11-18 post it also announced a partnership with Anthropic, and press reports describe its own MAI models.
Overview
- Founded: 1975, headquartered in Redmond, Washington (Wikipedia)
- Chairman and CEO: Satya Nadella (leadership roles of other executives not verified here)
- Microsoft AI: led by Mustafa Suleyman per press (start date not verified)
- Employees: about 223,000 (FY2026, per Wikipedia, secondary); job cuts in 2025-07 are reported by press but not verified here
- Segments: Productivity and Business Processes (Microsoft 365, LinkedIn, Dynamics), Intelligent Cloud (Azure, server products), More Personal Computing (Windows, Surface, Xbox, search ads)
- Website: https://www.microsoft.com/
Financials
| Period | Revenue | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 (to 2025-06) | $281.7B | net income about $101.8B |
| FY2026 (to 2026-06) | $331.8B, +18% | net income 214B |
| Q4 FY2026 | $90.0B, +18% | Azure and other cloud services +43% |
Per Microsoft’s 2026-07-29 results release, Azure passed $100B in annual revenue in FY2026 and Microsoft 365 Copilot reported more than 30 million paid seats (vendor-stated).
The OpenAI relationship
Consistent with OpenAI:
- 2019-2023: multi-billion investments and an Azure-exclusive compute arrangement.
- 2025-10-28 restructure: OpenAI became a public benefit corporation; Microsoft holds about 27% (an investment valued at about 250B of Azure purchases and Microsoft gave up its right of first refusal as compute provider. Microsoft’s IP rights for models and products run through 2032 and cover post-AGI models; an independent expert panel verifies any AGI declaration. OpenAI may jointly develop some products with third parties and serve non-API products on any cloud (Microsoft blog).
- 2026-04-27 amendment: exclusivity ended. Press coverage (CNBC, DCD; search summaries only, primary announcement not fetched) reports that exclusivity ended and revenue payments were capped; the specific terms are not verified here.
- OpenAI models are available through Microsoft Foundry and in Copilot products.
Anthropic and other model partners
- 2025-11-18: Microsoft, NVIDIA and Anthropic announced partnerships: commitment figures for Azure compute and investments are in the blog post and are not re-verified here. Claude models joined Microsoft Foundry, GitHub Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot. See Nvidia.
- Copilot Cowork: press (VentureBeat search summary) reports it was announced in 2026-03 with help from Anthropic, related to Claude Cowork; general-availability date, model additions and default-model claims from secondary reports are not verified and omitted.
Microsoft AI and the MAI models
Press reports describe an MAI Superintelligence team led by Mustafa Suleyman working on in-house models (formation date not verified).
- 2026-04-02: MAI-Transcribe-1 (speech to text), MAI-Voice-1 (speech generation) and MAI-Image-2 (image generation), available on Microsoft Foundry (TechCrunch). Whether MAI-Image-2 is image-only is unverified (the TechCrunch summary calls it “video-generating”).
- 2026-06-03, Build 2026: a secondary blog (franksworld.com) reports seven models, including MAI Thinking 1, MAI Code 1 Flash, MAI Image 2.5, MAI Voice 2 and MAI Transcribe 1.5; parameter counts and capabilities are not verified.
- Open and small models: Microsoft’s Phi family and Foundry Local for on-device use (no Phi note in the vault).
Products
- Copilot family: Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot and Copilot CLI, Copilot in Edge, Copilot Studio. Developer products: Microsoft Agent Framework.
- Platform: Azure and Microsoft Foundry (reported as the successor name to Azure AI Foundry; not verified), hosting OpenAI, Anthropic, MAI and open models.
- Data: Microsoft Fabric (microsoft-fabric-terminology-guide), microsoft-sqlserver.
- Developer ownership: GitHub (acquired 2018) and LinkedIn (2016). Activision Blizzard closed 2023-10.
Timeline 2025-2026
- 2025-10-28: OpenAI restructure agreement.
- 2025-11-18: Anthropic and NVIDIA partnership announced (Microsoft blog).
- 2026-04: MAI models and amended OpenAI agreement (press reports; not verified against primary sources).
- 2026-07-29: FY2026 results, Azure above $100B.
Market position
Competitors include AWS (amazon-web-services) and Google Cloud (alphabet) in cloud, Google Workspace for Microsoft 365, and GitLab for GitHub (author’s framing, not sourced).
Risks
Author’s view (opinion, not sourced): regulatory scrutiny of AI partnerships and cloud licensing, heavy AI capex, dependence on a small number of frontier-model suppliers, and competition from AWS and Google.
Corrections to the earlier version
The previous note was FY2025 only, described the OpenAI relationship as “strategic partnership and investment” without the 2025-10 and 2026-04 changes, and listed “Azure OpenAI Service” and “Azure AI Studio” as current names (now Microsoft Foundry).
Open items
- Primary text of the 2026-04-27 amendment (cap size, duration) was not fetched.
- Names of two of the seven Build 2026 MAI models.
Sources
- Microsoft FY2026 Q4 results: https://news.microsoft.com/source/2026/07/29/microsoft-cloud-and-ai-strength-fuels-fourth-quarter-results-4/ (fetched 2026-10-05)
- Microsoft-OpenAI 2025-10-28: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/10/28/the-next-chapter-of-the-microsoft-openai-partnership/ (fetched 2026-10-05)
- April 2026 amendment: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/27/openai-microsoft-partnership-revenue-cap.html and https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/microsoft-loses-ip-exclusivity-rights-and-sees-revenue-payments-capped-in-updated-openai-deal/ (search summaries only; pages returned 403, 2026-10-05)
- Anthropic partnership: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/11/18/microsoft-nvidia-and-anthropic-announce-strategic-partnerships/ (search summary, 2026-10-05)
- MAI models: https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/02/microsoft-takes-on-ai-rivals-with-three-new-foundational-models/ ; https://www.franksworld.com/2026/06/03/microsoft-build-2026-unveiling-seven-revolutionary-ai-models-with-mustafa-suleyman/ (fetched 2026-10-05; the second is a secondary blog)
- Copilot Cowork: https://venturebeat.com/orchestration/microsoft-announces-copilot-cowork-with-help-from-anthropic-a-cloud-powered (search summary)
- Wikipedia (secondary): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft (fetched 2026-10-05)