Microsoft integrates Anthropic's Claude models into 365 Copilot, moving beyond OpenAI

Microsoft has announced that it is expanding its AI options by integrating Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude Opus 4.1 into its Microsoft 365 Copilot app, marking a shift given Microsoft’s historic reliance on OpenAI’s models as a key partner and investor, with the new capabilities debuting in the new Researcher agent tool and Microsoft Copilot Studio.

In Researcher, users can try Claude Opus 4.1 through a new button and switch between OpenAI and Anthropic models after opting in. Access is currently limited to Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed customers enrolled in the Frontier program.

Copilot Studio now lets developers build and manage agents using Anthropic models for deep reasoning, workflow automation, and other tasks. It also supports combining Anthropic, OpenAI, and Azure-hosted models. While Anthropic’s systems remain hosted on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft accesses them via API. Reports suggest Claude may also be introduced into Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint, where it has shown stronger performance than OpenAI models in testing.