Remember when getting different AI models to work together was like trying to get your iPhone to play nice with your PC? Well, Microsoft just announced that Claude models are now available in Microsoft 365 Copilot—and switching between them is as easy as clicking a dropdown menu.
Starting Wednesday Sept 24, Microsoft 365 Copilot users can choose between OpenAI's models and Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4 and Opus 4.1 when using the Researcher agent or building custom agents in Copilot Studio.
How it works: When you're using Microsoft's Researcher agent (think of it as your AI research assistant that can dig through your emails, meetings, and documents), you'll now see an option to switch between models with a simple toggle. Need Claude's writing skills for a market analysis? Click. Want OpenAI's approach for a technical brief? Click back.
What Claude brings to the table:
- Deep reasoning for complex, multi-step research projects.
- Better synthesis across multiple sources (perfect for quarterly reports).
- Stronger writing capabilities for go-to-market strategies and business docs.
- Workflow automation through custom agents in Copilot Studio.
Here's the catch: Claude runs on Anthropic's servers, not Microsoft's. That means your data leaves Microsoft's walled garden when you use Claude. Companies need to opt-in through the Microsoft 365 admin center, and IT admins are probably already sweating about the compliance implications. Also
Why this matters: This may be the first time that Microsoft’s hundreds of millions of users with access to Copilot ever get to try Claude, which is a big deal. Fun fact: Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman actually mentioned this in our latest podcast interview with him, talking about how Microsoft is “such a huge organization” that they need to have “maximum optionality.” It’s only fair; OpenAI has suitors aplenty for their datacenter needs; why can’t Microsoft have multiple models to choose in Copilot?
Also, this is Microsoft admitting that no single AI model rules them all. Different models excel at different tasks: in our opinion, Claude for nuanced writing, OpenAI for sheer intelligence and technical tasks, Gemini for long context tasks requiring keeping track of loads of details. By letting users choose, Microsoft's essentially creating an AI model marketplace inside Office. Also, long live the model picker menu?? Seems like it ain’t going anywhere!
Here’s a hot take for the road: Could we be watching the walls between AI companies start to crumble here? Today it's Claude in Copilot. Tomorrow? Maybe Gemini in ChatGPT. We’re joking, obviously, but wouldn’t that be something? Can Copilot get Nano Banana next?!
