Microsoft is continuing to expand its fleet of AI partners, hedging its bets beyond its high-profile partnership with OpenAI — a change that’s coming into sharper focus this week at the company’s Build developer conference.

Joining forces with Anthropic and other parts of the MCP network, Microsoft has designed an authorization spec to improve security between apps and MCP servers. The new spec lets users implement verified sign-in methods like Microsoft Entra ID to let apps powered by agents and LLMs access data, including personal drives or subscriptions.

This time at I/O, Google appeared to get the upper hand, vibe-wise, with a flurry of new models and features, a vision of a universal AI assistant, and even plans for AI-powered AR glasses. Safe to say, it’s well behind the pack no longer. But Microsoft also unleashed a raft of new AI features and agents as well at Build.

Anthropic's Claude Opus 4 outperforms OpenAI's GPT-4.1 with unprecedented seven-hour autonomous coding sessions and record-breaking 72.5% SWE-bench score, transforming AI from quick-response tool to day-long collaborator.

Microsoft has struck a deal with Anthropic to use the startup’s models to power new AI agent features in its GitHub Copilot product, the company said on Thursday. The move reflects Microsoft’s willingness to branch out from OpenAI,

GitHub and Microsoft, GitHub's corporate parent, are joining the steering committee for MCP, Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to the systems where data resides.

Microsoft said it will add an artificial intelligence coding agent from Google-backed startup Anthropic to its GitHub service. Coding agents can carry out software development tasks, such as fixing bugs,

When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella ran into Meta’s former engineering chief, Jay Parikh, at a conference last summer, he had the future of AI top of mind. The pair have known each other for around 15 years,