Microsoft

Microsoft is a global technology leader that develops and licenses software and services across a broad range of devices. It is headquartered in Redmond, Wash., and was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Satya Nadella currently serves as CEO. Microsoft’s divisions include Windows, Office, Azure and LinkedIn. The company’s competitors include Apple, Amazon and Google. Our coverage of Microsoft closely follows the company’s attempts to lead in artificial intelligence, such as its major $11 billion investment in OpenAI.

Recent Articles about Microsoft

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. Getty Images

Airbnb CEO Throws Subtle Shade at OpenAI; Khosla’s Enterprise AI Fix

By Kevin McLaughlin · Oct 23, 2025 11:12am PDT

Welcome back! At its developer conference earlier this month, OpenAI showed a forthcoming feature that lets ChatGPT users access services from Expedia, Uber and Spotify directly in the chatbot. Some consumer apps might view such a feature as a threat because it bypasses their sites, preventing them from showcasing other products.For his... Welcome back! At its developer conference earlier this month, OpenAI showed a forthcoming...

SoftBank CEO, Masayoshi Son. Getty Images

SoftBank Hunts for Humanoid Robot Startups

By Rocket Drew · Oct 23, 2025 11:11am PDT · 2 comments

SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son has long predicted a future where robots would outnumber people and take over many jobs from humans. But some of SoftBank’s bets in robotics over the past 10 years, such as robot companion Pepper, have not panned out. Now the company is renewing its robot ambitions—particularly in robots that resemble humans. Late... SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son has long predicted a future where robots would outnumber people and take...

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Musk Dials Back Near Term Robotaxi and Optimus Targets

By Theo Wayt · Oct 22, 2025 5:00pm PDT

As a car manufacturer, Tesla’s latest financial results released Wednesday were a definite (if expected) improvement on the first half of the year. Instead of auto sales falling 16%, as they did in the second quarter, they rose 6%. And thanks to even stronger growth in battery sales and services, Tesla’s total revenue grew 12% year over year to... As a car manufacturer, Tesla’s latest financial results released Wednesday were a definite (if...

Art by Clark Miller

Why OpenAI Just Declared War on Google’s $100 Billion Search Moat

By The Information Staff · Oct 22, 2025 1:09pm PDT · 1 comment

Art by Clark Miller

Why OpenAI Just Declared War on Google’s $100 Billion Search Moat

By The Information Staff · Oct 22, 2025 1:09pm PDT · 1 comment

OpenAI has launched a direct strategic assault on Google’s advertising empire by introducing its new AI browser, ChatGPT Atlas. This is a high-stakes move that positions the AI model as the ultimate user interface for all web activity, aiming to entirely bypass the traditional search page where Google makes its money. This aggressive move forces... OpenAI has launched a direct strategic assault on Google’s advertising empire by introducing its...

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OpenAI’s New Browser War; Google’s College Developer Play

By Erin Woo and Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 22, 2025 7:00am PDT

Before we get to today’s column, we’d be remiss not to mention OpenAI’s release on Tuesday of its new web browser, news of which we first scooped almost a year ago. The new browser, ChatGPT Atlas, is yet another example of OpenAI expanding its reach into consumers’ online lives, just as other tech incumbents such as Google and Apple... Before we get to today’s column, we’d be remiss not to mention OpenAI’s release on Tuesday of its...

Andrej Karpathy. Getty Images

A Reality Check on Agents

By Aaron Holmes · Oct 21, 2025 10:30am PDT · 2 comments

Around the start of this year, executives at artificial intelligence providers like OpenAI and Salesforce said 2025 would be “the year of agents,” making it seem like fully autonomous AI would soon take over human jobs. Since then, Salesforce, Microsoft, SAP and many others pitched roughly seven types of agent to automate white collar tasks in... Around the start of this year, executives at artificial intelligence providers like OpenAI and...

The Oracle data center for OpenAI in Abilene, Texas. Photo via Getty

AI Infrastructure

The Data Center Boom Enters a Speculative Era

By Anissa Gardizy · Oct 20, 2025 10:19am PDT

The Wynn in Las Vegas was buzzing last week as executives, investors and dealmakers from across the data center, cloud and finance world converged at an event to trade notes on how quickly the industry has changed. A year ago, most conversations at Infra/Structure, hosted by Structure Research, focused on how hard it was to find land and... The Wynn in Las Vegas was buzzing last week as executives, investors and dealmakers from across...

Peter Hoeschele. Screenshot via YouTube

OpenAI Executive Explains the Insatiable Appetite For AI Chips

By Sri Muppidi · Oct 20, 2025 7:00am PDT

Peter Hoeschele. Screenshot via YouTube

OpenAI Executive Explains the Insatiable Appetite For AI Chips

By Sri Muppidi · Oct 20, 2025 7:00am PDT

Peter Hoeschele, who runs OpenAI’s Stargate data center team, said at an event last week that the company’s models are essentially in constant training mode. That’s a change from the past, when OpenAI would stop training them when they reached a certain point. “Let’s stop talking about training versus inference,” Hoeschele said after Oracle... Peter Hoeschele, who runs OpenAI’s Stargate data center team, said at an event last week that the...

The Best New Places for a Tech Holiday Party

By Jemima McEvoy · Oct 18, 2025 6:19am PDT · 2 comments

Many in tech have seen plenty of reasons to celebrate lately—with AI valuations soaring and paydays getting bigger and bigger. And pretty soon it’ll be time to consider the all-important event for tying a ribbon around the year: the holiday party, with the most-prized venues filling up in the next few weeks. The audacious blowouts of the... Many in tech have seen plenty of reasons to celebrate lately—with AI valuations soaring and...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Getty Images

What Microsoft Could Teach Oracle

By Martin Peers · Oct 17, 2025 3:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Was it something they said? Oracle shares fell 7% on Friday, a day after the software and cloud firm offered investors bullish growth projections for the next five years, both for revenue and for profits. In Oracle’s ideal world, those projections would have put to rest concerns about the cost of its artificial intelligence cloud expansion,... Was it something they said? Oracle shares fell 7% on Friday, a day after the software and cloud...

Oracle co-CEO Clay Magouyrk. Getty Images

Oracle’s Hypergrowth Forecasts

By Martin Peers · Oct 16, 2025 5:00pm PDT

Bearish sentiment about the cost-benefit equation of artificial intelligence has become so prevalent lately that it almost feels like conventional wisdom is now skepticism. But that certainly isn’t the case at Oracle, the nearly 50-year-old enterprise software firm turned cloud provider, which declared itself today to be a “hypergrowth company,”... Bearish sentiment about the cost-benefit equation of artificial intelligence has become so...

Alex Ferrara, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. Photo courtesy of Paul Clarke for Resilience Media.

Bessemer Bets on War Worries in Europe

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 16, 2025 2:38pm PDT

Alex Ferrara, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. Photo courtesy of Paul Clarke for Resilience Media.

Bessemer Bets on War Worries in Europe

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 16, 2025 2:38pm PDT

The name of Bessemer Venture Partners is tied closely with the cloud software boom of the 2010s. The backer of Twilio, Shopify and Zoom even created its own Nasdaq index of cloud software companies, which I look at often to track the ups and downs of the market.But it’s not a good time to be a software investor. That index of cloud stocks has... The name of Bessemer Venture Partners is tied closely with the cloud software boom of the 2010s....

Oracle Chair Larry Ellison. Image via Getty

Oracle Assures Investors on AI Cloud Margins as It Struggles to Profit From Older Nvidia Chips

By Anissa Gardizy · Oct 16, 2025 2:15pm PDT · 1 comment

Oracle on Thursday sought to reassure investors that its business of renting out servers packed with Nvidia chips to OpenAI, Meta and other artificial intelligence developers will become far more profitable as revenue surges. Oracle co-CEO Clay Magouyrk told financial analysts Thursday that the company’s AI data center business, which is mostly... Oracle on Thursday sought to reassure investors that its business of renting out servers packed...

Illustration by Mike Sullivan; Getty Images

XAI’s Unusual Dealmaking to Fund Musk’s Colossus 2

By Theo Wayt and Miles Kruppa · Oct 16, 2025 10:02am PDT · 3 comments

Elon Musk’s xAI is aiming to build and control the world’s most powerful data center and a massive natural gas plant to power it. The scale of the project and xAI’s precarious finances are forcing the company into unusual financial arrangements that rely on outsiders to raise funding and shoulder much of the risk. XAI wants to have as much... Elon Musk’s xAI is aiming to build and control the world’s most powerful data center and a...

Sam Altman. Getty Images.

OpenAI’s Growing Ecosystem Play

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 16, 2025 7:00am PDT · 2 comments

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on a podcast last week that he wanted ChatGPT to become “people’s personal AI subscription.” The company last week made moves toward that goal with “apps in ChatGPT,” which lets people use the chatbot to search for homes on Zillow or make Spotify playlists, for instance.In another example, OpenAI has pitched companies... OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on a podcast last week that he wanted ChatGPT to become “people’s...

Left to right: Microsoft's Satya Nadella and Amy Hood, OpenAI's Sam Altman. Art: Shane Burke. Photos: Getty

Why Microsoft Let OpenAI Play the Field

By Aaron Holmes · Oct 16, 2025 6:00am PDT · 4 comments

Left to right: Microsoft's Satya Nadella and Amy Hood, OpenAI's Sam Altman. Art: Shane Burke. Photos: Getty

Why Microsoft Let OpenAI Play the Field

By Aaron Holmes · Oct 16, 2025 6:00am PDT · 4 comments

Over the past three years, as OpenAI swelled from a tiny research lab into the world’s most valuable startup, one company has captured nearly all of its billions of dollars in annual spending on the servers needed to power OpenAI’s artificial intelligence: Microsoft. In recent months, though, OpenAI announced megadeals with several Microsoft... Over the past three years, as OpenAI swelled from a tiny research lab into the world’s most...

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at Dreamforce on Tuesday. Image via Getty

Salesforce CEO Shifts AI Strategy as OpenAI Threat Looms

By Kevin McLaughlin and Erin Woo · Oct 15, 2025 2:22pm PDT · 5 comments

At Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce event for customers last year, CEO Marc Benioff told roughly 45,000 attendees that using artificial intelligence to automate everything from customer service to sales functions was an easy and quick process. At this year’s event, now underway in San Francisco, Benioff toned down the rhetoric. He said Tuesday at... At Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce event for customers last year, CEO Marc Benioff told roughly...

Art by Clark Miller

Why Cloud Profits Are Collapsing in the Chip Arms Race

By The Information Staff · Oct 15, 2025 12:27pm PDT

The AI boom is fueling massive cloud revenue growth, yet the true financial story is defined by a deep, hidden vulnerability: the staggering cost of specialized AI chips. This imbalance is creating a profit crisis, forcing cloud providers to accept razor-thin margins on their services and fundamentally altering their core business model. Our... The AI boom is fueling massive cloud revenue growth, yet the true financial story is defined by a...

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Getty Images

The Other Bubble

By Ken Brown · Oct 14, 2025 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

If there is a bubble in artificial intelligence, much of the blame can be placed on Wall Street, not Silicon Valley. Financial markets are as frothy as they can be, and the appetite for risk appears to be insatiable. That’s why Sam Altman has been able to get otherwise rational companies and investors to fund his audacious growth plans. On... If there is a bubble in artificial intelligence, much of the blame can be placed on Wall Street,...

Reducto cofounders Raunak Chowdhuri and Adit Abraham. Photo courtesy of Reducto.

The Startup Using AI to Translate Documents Into Data

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 14, 2025 7:00am PDT

Reducto cofounders Raunak Chowdhuri and Adit Abraham. Photo courtesy of Reducto.

The Startup Using AI to Translate Documents Into Data

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 14, 2025 7:00am PDT

If you’ve ever uploaded a picture of a receipt to an expense report or read a PDF of a book online, you’ve likely used optical character recognition, a decades-old technique that converts images of typed, handwritten or printed text into text that’s editable on a computer.OCR might not sound like the sexiest market. But it’s interesting enough... If you’ve ever uploaded a picture of a receipt to an expense report or read a PDF of a book...