starting today, microsoft 365 copilot adds support for anthropic's claude sonnet 4 and claude opus 4.1 ai models, breaking the previous reliance on openai models. users can now directly use anthropic models in researcher and copilot studio, further enhancing the intelligent experience in office scenarios.
charles lamanna, president of microsoft's business and industry copilot team, emphasized that copilot will still be supported by openai's latest models, but with the addition of anthropic options, users can flexibly choose according to their needs. he said that the newly introduced claude models have been optimized to better suit enterprise-level tasks, such as deep reasoning and automated workflows. in researcher, users can switch to opus 4.1 with a single click by applying the "try claude" button at the top, using it in parallel with openai models.
additionally, copilot studio users can also choose claude sonnet 4 or opus 4.1 when building intelligent agents, and even mix-and-match tools from anthropic, openai, and azure model catalogs. lamanna noted that this update will significantly enhance the flexibility and efficiency of workflows. currently, the new features are being gradually rolled out through the frontier program, and users need to actively opt-in to participate in the experience.
this collaboration marks microsoft's further integration of multiple ai technologies to provide enterprise users with more comprehensive intelligent solutions.
