Microsoft is attempting to diversify its AI ecosystem by allowing Copilot users to switch between OpenAI and Anthropic's AI models as of Wednesday.

Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it will incorporate Anthropic's artificial intelligence models into its Copilot assistant, indicating the software behemoth's efforts to lessen reliance on its well-known collaboration with ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

Although Copilot will continue to employ the most recent models from OpenAI, users will have the option to choose between the Anthropic models Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude Opus 4.1 when creating agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio and using Copilot's AI-powered reasoning agent "Researcher."

According to Charles Lamanna, head of Microsoft's business and industrial Copilot operations, customers who choose to test Claude will be able to alternate between OpenAI and Anthropic models in Researcher as of Wednesday.

The change represents a change for Microsoft Copilot, which has been relying mostly on OpenAI to implement the new AI capabilities in Word and Outlook. Microsoft, one of OpenAI's biggest investors, is working to lessen its reliance on the firm by creating its own AI model and incorporating DeepSeek models from China into its Azure cloud platform.

Microsoft said earlier this year that it will provide new AI models developed by businesses such as Meta Platforms and Elon Musk's xAI, which are housed in its own data centers. Amazon Web Services, a competitor to Microsoft's cloud business, is the primary host of Anthropic's AI models.