Microsoft Trains Salespeople to Disparage OpenAI and Anthropic Models It Just Deployed in $2.5B Consulting Venture

On July 2, 2026, Microsoft launched a $2.5 billion AI consulting firm using models from OpenAI and Anthropic. Twelve days later, executives at an internal FY27 strategy meeting instructed salespeople to negatively compare those same competitors' offerings against Microsoft's own, with one EVP claiming Anthropic's Claude was "slower and less accurate" and lacked proper Office security integrations.