Despite Microsoft’s billion-dollar investment in Copilot, office workers are increasingly opting for ChatGPT. Some companies have already changed direction and are implementing OpenAI products, creating internal conflict between the two allies.
Despite Microsoft’s billion-dollar investment in Copilot, office workers are increasingly opting for ChatGPT. Some companies have already changed direction and are implementing OpenAI products, creating internal conflict between the two allies.
As Bloomberg reports, a number of Microsoft corporate clients unexpectedly began to massively use ChatGPT in their work processes, even despite already signed agreements to implement Copilot. An example is the pharmaceutical company Amgen, which bought Copilot for 20,000 employees, but a year later expanded the use of ChatGPT in internal processes — at the initiative of the employees themselves.
ChatGPT’s popularity among users proved to be a problem for Microsoft, which was hoping to fully capture the enterprise market. Vendors faced the fact that Copilot was difficult to distinguish from ChatGPT, as both run on the same model — from OpenAI.
«ChatGPT is simply more convenient, faster, and more enjoyable to use,» Amgen says. Copilot only has the advantage of integrating with Outlook, Teams, and Excel.
Other companies, such as New York Life, have given employees the option to use both assistants and only later plan to decide which one to keep. At Bain & Co., despite its close partnership with Microsoft, 16,000 employees use ChatGPT, but only 2,000 use Copilot, mostly in conjunction with Excel.
Microsoft has invested over $13 billion in OpenAI, but now the partnership resembles a rivalry: Microsoft is developing its own AI models and is not agreeing to OpenAI’s new restructuring. Meanwhile, OpenAI is signing contracts with competing cloud providers and also acquiring Microsoft’s competing startups, including Windsurf, an analogue of GitHub Copilot.
Despite this, Microsoft is reporting success: more than 100,000 paid users of Copilot are at Barclays, Accenture and Volkswagen. However, as analysts note, there is currently an «AI duel» where the one who is closer to the end user wins. And while ChatGPT remains a more familiar tool, this may be an advantage that is difficult to compensate for even with Microsoft’s vast resources.
As a reminder, our feed also featured an article about how Microsoft’s Copilot became available to Rakuten Viber users in Ukraine. The AI assistant will provide quick answers to questions, generate images, and perform other tasks right in the messenger.
