Microsoft (MSFT) Stock Gains on Swapping Out OpenAI and Anthropic for Its Own AI Models

Microsoft (MSFT) is starting to use more of its own AI inside key apps such as Excel and Outlook as it aims to cut costs and rely less on outside labs, Bloomberg reported. The company has begun routing several weekly prompts in those apps through its in‑house MAI models instead of OpenAI or Anthropic. Following the news, MSFT stock was up 1.3% on Tuesday.

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The shift is still small compared with Microsoft's overall AI use, but it shows the company is making progress on building cheaper, competitive models. At its Build conference in June, Microsoft rolled out seven new MAI models, including one it says can match the coding skills of Anthropic's popular Opus 4.6 model at a lower cost.

MAI models are also being used inside GitHub Copilot, and Microsoft plans to bring its own transcription model to Teams and other apps in the coming months.

Microsoft burns huge amounts of AI tokens to power tools like Copilot, and its long‑time deal with OpenAI currently gives it discounted access. But that deal will not last forever, and MSFT is working to make sure it is not stuck paying whatever top labs choose to charge down the road.

Microsoft's Long‑Term AI Cost Strategy

Microsoft is pushing hard to cut its long‑term AI costs as model sizes grow and computing needs explode. A major part of this plan is building its own custom chips like the Maia 200 to lower the cost of running AI models in production. By using these in-house chips for internal AI operations and Copilot products, Microsoft reduces its heavy financial reliance on Nvidia (NVDA).

Further, it has put a limit on how much their own engineers can use internal AI tools to avoid wasted tokens and rising internal bills.

Overall, the company's goal is to ensure end-to-end integration across the stack. Microsoft is using its Azure cloud to host models and run cloud computing services for other top labs.

Is Microsoft a Buy or Sell?

Currently, Wall Street has a Strong Buy consensus rating on Microsoft stock based on 36 Buys and one Hold. The average MSFT stock price target of $563.62 indicates an upside potential of 43.93%.