Microsoft announced on Monday that it is expanding its list of third-party AI models available through its cloud service to include Grok, the AI model created by Elon Musk’s xAI.
Why it matters: Microsoft is working to persuade developers and companies that its AI strategy is superior to that of its partner OpenAI and several rivals, such as Google and Amazon.
Driving the news: Microsoft said Monday that it will allow users to run versions of xAI’s Grok 3 and Grok 3 mini models that are hosted and billed by Microsoft directly.
- According to Microsoft, it currently provides 1,900 models that are hosted by either its partners or itself.
- The Grok acquisition was reportedly in the works early this month.
Current situation: Microsoft also unveiled a new GitHub coding agent that can autonomously work on several jobs in the background during its Build conference on Monday.
- On Friday, OpenAI revealed its Codex agent, which has comparable capabilities.
“Simplify the creation of natural language interfaces for websites — making it easy to turn any site into an AI-powered app,” according to a blog post by Microsoft, which also revealed NLWeb, an open initiative.
- “The model of their choice and their own data,” according to Microsoft, will be used by websites to create conversational interfaces through NLWeb.
“This emerging vision of the internet is an open agentic web, where AI agents make decisions and perform tasks on behalf of users or organizations,” they stated in their post.
- Google will hold its I/O conference in Mountain View on Tuesday and Wednesday, and Anthropic will hold its first developer conference in San Francisco on Thursday, in addition to Microsoft’s Build event in Seattle.
