Software Weekend Edition: Signal from the Noise

Research evidence excerpt

Software Weekend Edition: Signal from the Noise

onitoring their ability to execute to plans against a backdrop of capacity and

power availability related constraints.

4. Microsoft replaces OpenAI and Anthropic with in-house MAI models to cut costs.

• What happened. As per a Bloomberg report (link), Microsoft is beginning to swap

OpenAI and Anthropic models for its own MAI models in products like Excel and

Outlook, with tens of thousands of AI prompts now run weekly on MAI; at Microsoft’s

Build conference in June the company announced seven new models and has in the past

expressed its intention to reduce spending on certain external models materially.

• Our take on the development. Microsoft building its own models to decrease third-

party model reliance presents a margin lever for the company with both near-term and

long-term implications, along with the full stack helping Microsoft with better control on

the underlying models powering its differentiated Copilot offerings across applications.

For the industry, it could offer signs that software companies are willing to support

applications without necessarily treating the latest frontier models as a prerequisite for

applications.

5. Cloudflare gives sites three controls over AI bots and a paywall to charge them.

• What happened. Cloudflare announced that it is rolling out a two-sided bot paywall,

potentially altering the convenience and economics in enabling agents to access online

content. Currently, Cloudflare lets every customer manage AI traffic across three bot

classes: Search, Agent, and Training, each independently allowable or blockable. New

defaults, effective September 15, block Training and Agent bots on ad-bearing pages for

new domains, while Search stays allowed.