Lab
Microsoft.
In plain English
One of the biggest software companies in the world, and it's been researching AI since the 1990s, long before most of the labs on this page existed. Its AI comes in two main forms. Microsoft Copilot is the everyday interface, built into Windows, and it's multimodal, so it can work with text, images and voice. Microsoft 365 Copilot is the business version, which brings AI directly into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Copilot isn't a model, it's the name of the product. Underneath, it runs on models from other labs, mainly OpenAI's and, more recently, Anthropic's Claude, which means Microsoft isn't dependent on one supplier. Through a service called Foundry it also sells models from many labs to businesses building their own tools, and it's building more of its own models too.
Models to know
MAI-Thinking-1, Microsoft's own reasoning model, which is still in preview. (Copilot itself runs on other labs' models, including OpenAI's and Anthropic's Claude.)
Who's in charge
Satya Nadella, CEO. Mustafa Suleyman, a co-founder of DeepMind, leads Microsoft AI.
Things to be aware of
Microsoft has invested billions in OpenAI since 2019 and owns a large stake in it, which is why OpenAI's models sit at the heart of Copilot. It can be a risk when Copilot arrives as part of the Microsoft licences you already pay for. Bringing it in can feel like a minor decision at the time, but the implications reach a long way. Nobody actively chooses to share anything. Copilot just works with the permissions you already have, and because AI is so good at finding things, anything a person can technically open, Copilot can bring straight to them. That's great if your files are tidy. If they aren't, it can surface files people had access to but never knew existed. Get on top of who can see what before you switch it on, and keep checking as it spreads.