Microsoft has instructed thousands of its software engineers to engage with both Claude Code and GitHub Copilot, tasked with assessing which tool performs superiorly.
This initiative reflects the company’s burgeoning confidence in Anthropic’s coding AI, even as it simultaneously promotes GitHub Copilot as a flagship offering for enterprise clients.
Recent reports from The Verge indicate that Microsoft’s CoreAI team, along with the expansive Experiences + Devices division—which oversees products like Windows, Office, Teams, Edge, and Surface—received directives last week to integrate Claude Code into their workflows.
Moreover, the company is encouraging non-technical staff, such as designers and project managers, to utilize the tool for swift prototyping. Access to Claude Code has also been authorized across all repositories for Microsoft’s Business and Industry Copilot teams.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang joins the Claude chorus
The timing of this development is particularly noteworthy. Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang recently advised his team of engineers at the $3 trillion enterprise to abandon manual coding and instead concentrate on addressing “undiscovered problems.”
During an interview on the No Priors AI podcast, he revealed that every Nvidia engineer presently employs AI coding assistants like Cursor as part of their daily tasks. At the World Economic Forum, he further extolled Claude as “incredible,” urging all software firms to embrace its capabilities.
In April 2025, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed that approximately 30% of the company’s codebase is now generated by AI, a proportion that continues to rise.
Similar claims have been echoed by Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who indicated that over 30% of new code at Google is AI-derived.
This transformation is significantly influencing how major technology corporations approach software development, raising pertinent questions about the future roles of junior developers.
What this means for Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI
Microsoft remains fundamentally committed to its collaboration with OpenAI, which underpins much of the Copilot architecture. Frank Shaw, head of Microsoft’s communications, emphasized that “OpenAI continues to be our primary partner and model provider on frontier models.”
Nonetheless, the company entered into a separate agreement with Anthropic in November, granting Microsoft Foundry clients access to Claude Sonnet 4.5, Opus 4.1, and Haiku 4.5. This contract also mandates that Anthropic purchase $30 billion in Azure computing capacity.
This internal pilot initiative epitomizes a practical reality: developers are increasingly leveraging diverse AI tools tailored to specific tasks.
While Microsoft markets GitHub Copilot externally, its internal deployment of Claude Code suggests potential future offerings of Anthropic’s tools to cloud clientele.
For the present, the company’s strategy hinges on allowing its engineers to juxtapose the two platforms in hopes of discovering which solution yields optimal results.
Source link: Timesofindia.indiatimes.com.
