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Microsoft starts swapping OpenAI and Anthropic out for its own AI in some apps
Microsoft shifts more Excel and Outlook AI features to its in-house MAI models, reducing reliance on OpenAI and Anthropic.
// daily-digest · sat 11 jul 2026 · morning refresh · last 72h focus
Ten items on shifting AI vendor dependencies, capital chasing agentic infrastructure, and software engineering careers, plus a science-funding essay and a wildcard chemistry mystery.
— refreshed for you, in 10 items.
Microsoft shifts more Excel and Outlook AI features to its in-house MAI models, reducing reliance on OpenAI and Anthropic.
Anthropic’s $65 billion Series H at a $965 billion valuation drives a surge in private equity coinvestment deals.
OpenAI’s Deployment Company agrees to acquire Northslope, its second applied-AI acquisition, to expand enterprise engineering staff.
Simon Willison summarizes OpenAI’s new GPT-5.6 model family and its benchmark claims against competing frontier models.
TechCrunch examines Anthropic’s new Reflect dashboard, a beta feature that tracks and nudges users’ Claude usage habits.
Grace Investment Machine raises a $20 million Series A to scale its agentic AI systems for capital markets.
Gergely Orosz answers subscriber questions on AI’s effect on engineering careers, hiring, and software leadership.
Noah Smith argues political attacks on federal science funding threaten the research infrastructure driving US innovation.
DPS board president says Superintendent Marrero did not intend to trigger a contract exit clause.
Researchers resolve a 150-year-old mystery about gallium’s unusual atomic bonds, aiding future semiconductor and nanotech design.