Microsoft

Microsoft is one of the world’s largest software companies, maker of Windows, Office and the Azure cloud platform. In AI it is best known for Copilot, the brand it uses for the AI assistants built into its products, and for its close partnership with OpenAI, whose models power much of that experience.

Microsoft’s strategy is to weave AI into tools people already use every day — writing email, building spreadsheets, coding — rather than asking them to visit a separate chatbot. More recently it has been merging its various Copilot apps and adding background agents that can handle tasks like scheduling on their own.

For businesses, Microsoft matters because its decisions shape how AI reaches ordinary office work, often through software that is already installed on company machines.