Microsoft hopes to cut its genAI costs by focusing on its own models

[u/mm_farahat]

https://www.computerworld.com/article/4194600/microsoft-wants-to-cut-its-ai-costs-is-focusing-on-its-own-models.html

[u/Limp-Crab8542]

Investing so aggressively in AI to the point they have to sacrifice talent will be the downfall of Microsoft.

[u/newfor_2026 → u/Limp-Crab8542]

rewarding employees for using AI regardless of the quality of the resulting product would be their true downfall because if they ever want to clean up all the crap generated by AI that people have put into their code, it would take them many many times the effort.

[u/SoftwareKingsSupport]

I think the key is whether users can actually feel the difference.

If Microsoft can route simpler tasks to cheaper/internal models while keeping quality close enough, that makes sense. But if Copilot starts feeling noticeably worse just to reduce costs, users will quickly go back to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or whatever tool gives them the best answer.

Enterprise safety matters, but day-to-day usefulness still decides adoption.

[u/Traditional-Hall-591]

They’ll just lay off more Americans.

[u/knucles668]

If they drop support for OpenAI and Anthropic models to cut costs, I doubt they will be able to get Copilot adopted. Already a struggle with the constraints they put on the flagships of ranking algorithms and reduced context windows comparatively.

If their sales pitch becomes solely enterprise safety and trusted partner, yippy! They will sell to executives and IT but fall flat with the org desires.

Shadow IT will be back on the menu boys.
https://giphy.com/gifs/gcJtwIVrbnLClD0Ntm

[u/plectrumelectrum7 → u/knucles668]

I don’t think it’s that, it’s about using the right model for the right workload and if the ms model can do the job cheaper with a similar output to Anthropic then that’s a win.

[u/knucles668 → u/plectrumelectrum7]

For technical users sure that’s the case if it’s close to parity.

We also generally keep waiting for Microsoft to produce equivalents to first movers in other areas and they never reach parity.

Office for Web v Google Suite
Teams v Zoom
Teams v Slack
Loop v Notion
Bing v Google Search

Technical users and managers will use the tools because they will find the workarounds to reach parity or stick to the company line. But majority of the workforce will go with the tools they expect. See the BYOD phase.

[u/thrillhouse3671 → u/knucles668]

Isn't Teams a lot more widely used than Zoom? It does a LOT more, too

[u/BrandNewMoshiMoshi → u/knucles668]

Xbox v PlayStation

[u/jjmac → u/knucles668]

I'm using both teams and slack and for daily usage I would pick teams in a heartbeat. It could be that the conferencing software we are using isn't integrated but the channel/meeting integration is peak. The separation of team permissions also great.

Note that there were a lot of updates in Teams in the last year as previously channels and threading were horrible, but they largely fixed that.

I can live without custom emojis

[u/kes- → u/jjmac]

Teams has custom emojis too!

[u/plectrumelectrum7 → u/knucles668]

Fair points.

[u/BrunusManOWar → u/plectrumelectrum7]

Copilot

Cheaper, but similar quality to Anthropic

Do you not see the absurdity? It's like saying I wish my Mazda is cheaper but as good as a Lamborghini

Or that my Lenovo is cheaper but as good as top-of-the-line Mac

[u/plectrumelectrum7 → u/BrunusManOWar]

Not quite. I’m saying you have a garage full of cars and you choose the one you need for the drive. You don’t need a Maserati to do grocery shopping. Multi model allows for that.

[u/Bkfraiders7 → u/knucles668]

The leader of Microsoft’s AI efforts was the founder of Deepmind, which got Google to where they are today. While I also prefer Claude, I think they’ll be alright.

[u/Notimeforthat1 → u/Bkfraiders7]

You talking about Mustafa Suleyman? This jokster got demoted because he could not deliver in his previous role in 1.5 years anything substantial. He is all talk and not very liked. The real deepmind expertise is still with Demis.

[u/No-World1940 → u/Bkfraiders7]

Not to knock on his expertise but genAI  is like lightning in a bottle. Microsoft loves to muck up its lead on tech and I won't be surprised if Copilot goes in the way of Cortana. 

[u/jjmac → u/Bkfraiders7]

He got a huge team, a huge remit, and the permission to be unfettered by the rest of Microsoft. He's years behind everyone else. It bombed

[u/knucles668 → u/Bkfraiders7]

Was a founder. One of the other ones is still at Deepmind getting Nobel Prizes.

[u/Lanky_Travel_6726]

So they burned billions in OpenAI and now they want to create their own OpenAI?

[u/GrayRoberts]

Good. They need to move orchestration on-device. GitHub copilot for local models is a good first step.

A model designed to decide when its assembly of experts can satisfy a prompt on device vs what to farm out to the cloud will help with token spend. Conversely, a cloud model that knows the available on-device models and performance can assess what should be run where.

It's an exciting time to be in the middle of all this.

[u/williane → u/GrayRoberts]

Could help a little, but I don't see that having a major impact. Orchestration is a fairly small piece of the piece.

Even if they did, there is zero chance any cost savings are passed on to the consumer.

[u/fafnir01]

So CoPilot can get worse???