Microsoft begins routing some Word and Excel prompts to MAI as OpenAI launches ChatGPT Work

The clearest new turn since the last update came from Microsoft: TechCrunch reported on July 7 that Microsoft has begun routing a portion of Word and Excel user prompts to its in-house MAI models instead of relying solely on OpenAI and Anthropic systems. That changes a visible part of Microsoft’s own product stack, not just what it sells to developers.

OpenAI’s biggest move was on July 9, when it launched ChatGPT Work, a new agent inside ChatGPT that can act across user apps and files and is offered via the desktop app and enterprise plans. The same day, Microsoft announced that OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 model family is now available across Microsoft 365 Copilot apps and is the preferred model for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Chat and Cowork.

Elsewhere, Google Cloud launched Cloud Run sandboxes in public preview on July 9 as a runtime for untrusted code and agent workloads. On July 9, Anthropic announced a partnership with UST under which UST will deploy Claude into engineering environments and train 20,000 engineers, architects and consultants globally. Apple also filed a lawsuit against OpenAI on July 10 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing OpenAI of trade secret theft and breach of contract.