【MSFT】Microsoft invests $2.5 billion to set up a new company to help businesses choose AI tools

Microsoft (Microsoft, US: MSFT) set up a new company, Microsoft Frontier Company,投入 $2.5 billion, to help enterprise customers select and integrate AI (artificial intelligence) tools, so that AI investment can generate returns faster.

Microsoft Frontier Company’s first customers include Unilever (UK: ULVR) and Novo Nordisk (US: NVO). The new company will help customers choose AI tools from Microsoft as well as external providers, and connect customers’ internal data to support use based on real business needs.

Helping enterprises pick AI tools

In recent years, large enterprises have stopped relying on renting a single AI provider’s models such as OpenAI or Anthropic, and instead adopt multiple technologies at the same time, including open-source models, then adjust them according to their own business needs. This approach costs more and also means it takes longer for AI investment to see returns.

Microsoft said that the deliverables of Microsoft Frontier Company will be retained by customers, not handed back to Microsoft. The new company will also compete with Palantir Technologies (US: PLTR) and Amazon’s Amazon Web Services (AWS), which earlier rolled out a $1 billion embedded engineering team to help enterprises deploy AI.

Making Copilot rely only on OpenAI was a mistake

Judson Althoff, Microsoft’s chief administrative officer of its business unit, said the new company partly comes from Microsoft’s own experience. He noted that as models such as DeepSeek and Google Gemini catch up to OpenAI, enterprises need more flexibility to quickly switch between different AI models.

In response to Reuters, Althoff said that when Microsoft built Copilot three years ago, it made a mistake—tying it only to the OpenAI model. He said enterprises need AI models to enhance intelligence, as well as the ability to switch and fine-tune among different advanced models.

Microsoft is one of OpenAI’s major investors, and earlier this year it also added Anthropic models to Copilot to respond to enterprise customers’ demand for Anthropic products. Althoff said that for customers, the combination of internal data and AI models is more important than any single model itself.

Microsoft’s share price rose on Thursday, up about 1.9% to $391.71, nearing the day’s high of $391.97.