copilot

According to a report by Financial Associated Press, Microsoft announced on October 26 local time that it will offer a voluntary severance compensation plan to approximately 60,000 employees to reduce costs and adjust its workforce for the AI era. More than a quarter of the total employee count is eligible, marking the company's third round of workforce adjustments this year.A spokesperson stated that some vice presidents and below in the United States, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom are eligible to apply, and those who accept the plan will receive benefits similar to standard severance packages. According to informed sources, departments such as Xbox, Windows, Copilot, and finance will fully participate, while some employees in data centers, sales, marketing, cybersecurity, and quantum computing will not be eligible. Chief Human Resources Officer Amy Coleman mentioned in an internal letter that the plan provides an option for employees considering leaving to transition with the company's support, and it is another way for departments to adjust their teams. The spokesperson also noted that if top talent accepts the plan, the company will attempt to retain them in some cases.In April this year, Microsoft launched its first voluntary retirement program for about 8,750 eligible U.S. employees, with over 30% ultimately accepting; in July, it announced layoffs of approximately 4,800 people, accounting for about 2.1% of the total workforce. The spokesperson expects the number of acceptances this time to be far less than the voluntary retirement program. As of the end of June, Microsoft had a total of 223,000 employees. According to the financial report on July 29, capital expenditures for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026 were $41 billion, a year-on-year increase of about 70%, and capital expenditures for the first quarter of fiscal year 2027 are expected to be about $50 billion.

According to Zhitong Finance, JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee maintains a "Buy" rating on Microsoft with a target price of $625. The research report states that investors will closely monitor the business growth of Azure, the commercial version of Microsoft 365 Cloud, and Copilot.Chatterjee indicated that compared to the quarterly earnings report itself, the stock price reaction may be more determined by performance outlook, as investors hope to see sustainable signals of growth in cloud business and artificial intelligence.Yorkville Ives analyst Dan Ives maintained a "Outperform" rating on Microsoft with a target price of $615 on Friday, and listed Microsoft as one of his "Top 5 Tech Picks Before 2027." Ives stated that the concentrated earnings reports from large cloud providers like Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon are expected to soothe the highly volatile market.

According to Sveriges Radio, the Swedish government office announced that starting from October 26 (Monday), ChatGPT and Claude will be banned on employee computers, with Microsoft Copilot approved as the only AI tool that has passed security review, and civil servants are required to switch to using Copilot.Mikael Wettercrantz, the agency's Director of Digitalization, stated in a post on the employee intranet that using AI services without a formal contract could "have consequences for our information security." He noted that multiple cases of improper use of open AI services have been identified, involving the sensitivity of the information inputted and the handling of AI-generated content. Due to the lack of formal agreements, consumer-grade AI tools send user queries to external company servers, and U.S. law allows authorities to request these companies to hand over data as required.Copilot is allowed to remain because the government office enhanced its security settings after review, while ChatGPT and Claude did not receive the same treatment. Some employees can still access these two banned tools through the AI platform built internally by the agency. Previously, the Swedish Tax Agency and the National Board of Health and Welfare had implemented similar bans, and the enforcement agency is also about to make a decision; an internal audit by the Transport Agency found about 10 AI services being "widely and at high risk" used.

According to The Information, Microsoft (MSFT.O) will increase the discount on Copilot while launching an AI "super app."

Microsoft announced on Monday the launch of two new features for Copilot Researcher—Critique and Council—combining OpenAI's GPT with Anthropic's Claude for the same research task.Critique adopts a sequential collaboration model: GPT is responsible for planning the research, retrieving information, and generating the first draft, while Claude serves as a strict reviewer, checking the accuracy of facts and the quality of citations; Council allows both models to independently generate reports in parallel, with a third referee model comparing differences and summarizing discrepancies.In the DRACO benchmark test covering 100 complex research tasks across 10 fields including healthcare, law, and technology, Copilot equipped with Critique scored 57.4 points, leading the second place by nearly 14%, far surpassing Claude Opus running alone with a score of 42.7 points.

ChainCatcher news, according to sources, Microsoft has been working to increase both internal and third-party artificial intelligence models to support its flagship AI product Microsoft 365 Copilot, diversifying the existing OpenAI foundational technology and reducing costs.Microsoft is a major supporter of OpenAI, and this time Microsoft is seeking to reduce its reliance on the AI startup, which is different from the way Microsoft has boasted about its access to OpenAI models in recent years.Sources say that in addition to training its own smaller models (including the latest Phi-4), Microsoft is also working to customize other open models to make 365 Copilot faster and more efficient. It is reported that the aim of this move is to lower the costs of running 365 Copilot and potentially pass the savings on to end customers.