Microsoft is expanding its AI offerings by hosting rival models from xAI, Meta, Mistral, and Black Forest Labs in its own data centers. The tech giant also unveiled a new coding agent that can complete software coding tasks autonomously. The moves come as Microsoft shifts its focus towards being a more neutral player in the AI arms race, working with multiple players instead of backing only OpenAI.
Microsoft’s partnership with xAI, Meta, Mistral, and Black Forest Labs will provide customers with access to over 1,900 AI models hosted in Azure data centers. This move is expected to enhance reliability guarantees for these models, similar to those offered by OpenAI when hosted on Microsoft’s platform.
The new coding agent, called GitHub Copilot, is designed to assist developers with coding tasks. It can take instructions from humans and then complete the task autonomously, alerting the human to review its work. This technology is similar to OpenAI’s Codex agent.
Microsoft also plans to add more popular models soon. The company aims to provide a seamless experience for customers by making its Azure OpenAI reserved capacity work across multiple models.
As Microsoft expands its AI offerings, it must consider the implications of treating AI agents as digital employees within companies’ systems. This concept has both potential benefits and concerns about the impact on workplaces.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/microsoft-hosts-developer-conference-focus-grows-ai-profits-2025-05-19