mai models

Microsoft MAI models are a family of in-house artificial intelligence models developed by Microsoft, spanning reasoning, code generation, image generation, speech, and transcription. As of mid-2026, Microsoft has begun routing some Microsoft 365 Copilot prompts in Excel and Outlook away from OpenAI and Anthropic models and toward MAI models, with tens of thousands of weekly prompts already handled internally. This shift is not a breakup with OpenAI but a strategic move to reduce costs and gain more control over AI infrastructure. For Windows and Microsoft 365 users, the interface remains largely unchanged, but the backend change allows Microsoft to choose the most cost-effective model for each task, turning Copilot into a vertically integrated service.