Microsoft is racing to make OpenAI optional

Microsoft is pushing its own AI models into products like Excel and GitHub Copilot to reduce reliance on OpenAI.

The company says its in-house model performs competitively on common Excel tasks and can run production AI systems effectively.

Its MAI-Code-1-Flash model is already used in GitHub Copilot and is showing strong code acceptance and retention metrics.

Microsoft says its enterprise data and workflows can help it improve these models internally, which could lower AI costs and keep more value in-house.