By Rich Duprey
Publication Date: 2026-01-14 18:37:00
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is on pace to spend around $500 million annually on artificial intelligence (AI) models from Anthropic, according to a report from The Information. The company has quietly become one of Anthropic’s top customers, integrating Claude AI models to power features across its productivity ecosystem, including Microsoft 365 Copilot.
The push started back in September, when Microsoft first added support for Claude, but on Jan. 7, things took a big step forward: for most business customers (outside of certain regions like the EU, U.K., and European Free Trade Association, where administrators have to opt in), Claude models became turned on by default. This means many companies now automatically get access to Claude’s strengths without any extra setup.
This change builds on a major partnership announced in November between Microsoft, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), and Anthropic that expanded access to Claude on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and locked in…