Microsoft, in a move that surprises absolutely no one who has ever worked in sales, is reportedly coaching its sales team to trash-talk competitors OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic while hyping its own AI wares. At an internal strategy meeting Tuesday - because nothing says 'new fiscal year' like a healthy dose of shade - executives laid out a plan to emphasize the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of Microsoft's in-house models over rival offerings. 'Everyone else is selling parts - we're selling the full end-to-end system. That's the story that we all need to get out there and tell in FY27,' Executive Vice President Jay Parikh reportedly told the room, presumably with a straight face. Executive Vice President Jacob Andreou went further, directly comparing Copilot to Anthropic's Claude, claiming it was 'slower and less accurate, and lacked the proper security integrations' within Microsoft's office apps. TechCrunch has reached out to Microsoft and Anthropic for comment, though we suspect Anthropic's reply may contain a few choice words about ingratitude.

None of this is particularly shocking - companies badmouth rivals all the time. What's eyebrow-raising is the target list: the very same companies Microsoft has long depended on for the AI models powering its own products. A report earlier this month revealed Microsoft has been quietly swapping out OpenAI and Anthropic models from flagship apps like Word and Excel in favor of its own, citing cost-cutting. This marks a notable shift from the cozy days when Microsoft and OpenAI were practically joined at the hip, with Microsoft providing capital and compute in exchange for exclusive API access. That exclusivity clause was dropped in April, clearing OpenAI to sell to Microsoft's competitors. Now, with investors questioning Microsoft's massive AI spending and a less-than-optimistic stock outlook, the company seems desperate to prove its own products can stand alone - or at least trash-talk well enough to distract everyone.