Microsoft Tells Salespeople to Disparage Partners' AI Models Days After Launching Consulting Arm

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