Microsoft’s AI Efforts Are Faceplanting

Microsoft has continued to focus more and more on AI — almost certainly at the expense of its core products, like the Windows operating system. And unfortunately for the Redmond giant, the gambit doesn’t seem to be paying off.

Current and former employees tell The Wall Street Journal in new reporting that the company’s confusing branding and grating lack of cohesion between its products has frustrated and turned off users. And data reviewed by the newspaper shows that a vanishingly small percentage of its enterprise customers prefer using its AI chatbot and assistant Copilot, which appears to be losing ground to its competitors at Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

The report comes after a historically miserable day at the stock market for Microsoft last week, which saw its share price collapse by nearly 12 percent, a sign of investor…