Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has unveiled a series of new AI models in a bid to compete with Anthropic.

Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft’s AI chief, told The Financial Times that the company’s superintelligence team is focusing more on enterprise use cases, developers, and coding, akin to Anthropic’s approach, and is ” "less concerned" about the consumer-centric strategies of Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), and OpenAI.

At Microsoft’s Build conference on Tuesday, Suleyman unveiled seven new AI models, including a reasoning-focused system that Microsoft says delivers coding performance comparable to Anthropic’s Opus 4.6.

However, the executive acknowledged that Anthropic remains ahead despite Microsoft’s rapid progress over the past six months. He noted that the AI startup has already released two more advanced models since Opus 4.6, giving it a lead of several months in the race.

"We've closed an enormous gap in six months,” Suleyman said.

Microsoft’s AI lab also presented an “ultra-efficient” coding model fine-tuned for the group’s GitHub developer platform. Suleyman is confident that the amalgamation of a coding and reasoning model will aid Microsoft in creating autonomous bots capable of performing tasks for users, thereby providing a substantial ...