By Anthony Di Pizio
Publication Date: 2026-03-08 00:00:00
Key Points
Microsoft has become a leader in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry thanks to its Copilot virtual assistant and Azure cloud platform.
Investors are concerned about modest Copilot adoption rates from enterprise customers, and also about the composition of Azure’s enormous $625 billion order backlog.
Microsoft stock is down 25% from its record high, but this could be a great opportunity for long-term investors.
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Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is one of a handful of hyperscalers that offer an astronomical amount of cloud computing capacity through hundreds of centralized data centers scattered all over the world. Microsoft rents this capacity to business customers via its Azure cloud platform, and many of them use it to develop and deploy artificial intelligence (AI) software.
Azure is consistently the fastest-growing piece of Microsoft’s entire business. However, investors are also focusing on the company’s AI…
