Microsoft is reportedly training salespeople to talk about OpenAI and Anthropic

Microsoft appears to be preparing its sales force to get more competitive with other major players in the AI ​​industry.

In an internal meeting on Tuesday, company executives outlined a plan for salespeople to unfavorably compare AI products from companies like OpenAI, Google and Anthropic with their own, according to a recent report. New report From Bloomberg. The meeting, billed as a strategy session for the new fiscal year, is said to have largely focused on showcasing the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of Microsoft’s internal models against those of its competitors.

“Everyone is selling parts — we’re selling the complete system from start to finish. This is the story we all need to get out and tell in FY27,” Executive Vice President Jay Parikh reportedly told the chamber.

Executive Vice President Jacob Andrew reportedly went further, giving a presentation directly comparing Copilot to Anthropic’s chatbot Cloud. According to Bloomberg, Andrew noted that when it came to performance within Microsoft’s desktop applications, Anthropic’s model was “slower, less accurate, and lacked proper security integrations,” Bloomberg wrote.

TechCrunch has reached out to Microsoft and Anthropic for comment and we will update this story if we hear from either company.

That a company would train its sales team on how to talk about competitors is not particularly surprising. Even more notable is who Microsoft is targeting now: the same companies it has long relied on for the AI ​​models that power its own products.

It’s just the latest step in this direction. A a report Earlier this month, I found that Microsoft had swapped out OpenAI and Anthropic models from key apps like Word and Excel in favor of its own — a move to cut costs, according to that report.

There was a time when Microsoft and OpenAI were linked at the hip. The two companies entered into a very unique agreement years ago that saw Microsoft provide capital and compute to OpenAI while allowing Microsoft to enjoy exclusive access to the OpenAI API and models. Companies Modified partnership in April, dropping the exclusivity requirement and allowing OpenAI to sell to Microsoft’s competitors.

This revised relationship may help explain the sales team’s new offering. Microsoft has been fighting a Less than optimal Stock expectations over the past year, as investors wonder about the company’s huge spending on… Creating its own AI business. Talking about how competitive these products actually are is likely an attempt to calm those waters and build confidence in Microsoft’s long-term AI plan.