Microsoft is reportedly coaching its sales force to steer customers away from rival artificial-intelligence providers and toward its own in-house models, according to reporting from TechCrunch, Bloomberg, PYMNTS and others.
The pitch centers on positioning Microsoft's home-grown AI models as more efficient and more cost-effective than competing products, TechCrunch reports. Rather than leaning only on the OpenAI and Anthropic technology it also sells, Microsoft is training staff to promote its own models directly.
According to Microsoft's messaging, the company argues it offers a more comprehensive AI platform, while framing rival products from OpenAI and Anthropic as comparatively limited. One MSN summary characterizes the guidance as coaching salespeople on how to get customers to "dump" those competitors, in part by telling them that everyone else is simply reselling the same underlying technology.
PYMNTS reports that the sales guidance specifically encourages staff to challenge OpenAI and Anthropic on two fronts: cost and security. Bloomberg similarly describes Microsoft giving its salespeople tips to "knock down" Anthropic and OpenAI. Coverage from Crypto Briefing adds that Google is also among the rivals Microsoft is training its teams to compete against.
The development is notable because of Microsoft's unusual position in the AI market. It is one of OpenAI's largest backers and a major distributor of both OpenAI and Anthropic models through its cloud and productivity products, even as it builds and sells competing models of its own.
Why it matters: The reported strategy signals that Microsoft increasingly sees the companies it partners with and resells as direct competitors, a shift that could reshape how businesses choose and pay for the AI tools now embedded in everyday software.