Microsoft is gearing up its sales force to sharpen its competitive edge in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. During an internal meeting on Tuesday, the company’s leadership laid out a strategy for sales representatives to draw direct comparisons between Microsoft’s AI offerings and those of key rivals, including OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, according to a recent Bloomberg report. The gathering, framed as a roadmap session for the upcoming fiscal year, reportedly placed heavy emphasis on promoting the efficiency and cost advantages of Microsoft’s proprietary models over competing products.

“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 attendees. Executive Vice President Jacob Andreou took it a step further, presenting a side-by-side comparison of Microsoft’s Copilot and Anthropic’s chatbot Claude. According to Bloomberg, Andreou highlighted that Anthropic’s model was “slower and less accurate, and lacked the proper security integrations” when used within Microsoft’s office applications.

While it’s not unusual for a company to coach its sales team on how to critique competitors, what stands out here is the target: the very companies Microsoft has long relied on for the AI models behind its own products. This marks the latest step in a broader shift. A report earlier this month revealed that Microsoft has been quietly replacing OpenAI and Anthropic’s models in flagship apps like Word and Excel with its own—a cost-saving measure, according to that analysis.

There was a time when Microsoft and OpenAI were closely intertwined. Several years ago, they struck a unique deal where Microsoft supplied capital and computing resources to OpenAI in exchange for exclusive access to its API and models. However, in April, the companies revised their partnership, removing the exclusivity clause and allowing OpenAI to sell to Microsoft’s rivals. This change may help explain the new sales strategy.

Over the past year, Microsoft has faced a less-than-optimistic stock outlook, as investors question the company’s heavy spending on AI infrastructure. By emphasizing how competitive its own AI products truly are, Microsoft appears to be trying to reassure stakeholders and build confidence in its long-term AI vision.