Microsoft’s AI push is gaining traction among the world’s biggest employers, with chief executive Satya Nadella touting a surge in adoption of its Copilot 365 platform.
It success has helped Microsoft climb to a $US3.9 trillion ($5.5 trillion) valuation this week as investors bet it will become one of the biggest winners from the AI boom.
For the September quarter, Microsoft posted a profit of $US36.6 billion, up from $US27.8 billion in the comparable quarter in 2026.
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On Thursday Mr Nadella repeatedly described Copilot 365 as the “new operating system” for work,with corporate adoption rising 50 per cent between the June and September quarters.
Versus the prior quarter in 2025, Copilot 365’s adoption rose more than five times.
Copilot 365 has 30 million paid users across corporates using the platform to deliver AI services to employees, drive efficiencies, automate tasks, and improve productivity.
“We are focused on three things,” Mr Nadella said of Microsoft’s ambitions to deliver AI services to corporate customers. “Designing AI to empower people, ensuring every organisation has sovereignty over its own learning, and building trust with controls that ensure safety and security.”
Major global employers that adopted it over the quarter included consultants Capgemini, Hitachi, Truist Financial, and the UK Revenue & Customs Department.
In February 2026, Westpac rolled Microsoft 365 Copilot out to its 35,000 employees in what was said to be the largest deployment by a financial services group in the Asia Pacific.
In June 2025, Commonwealth Bank offered the Copilot365 system to about 10,000 staff as it sought to harness AI to improve workplace efficiencies and automate routine activities.
Last week Volkswagen deployed the system to more than 330,000 employees largely in Europe. Other recent adopters include the New South Wales Department of Health, asset management giant Blackrock, and big-four consultancy Ernst & Young.
Offers AI with client protections
Copilot is sold to corporate customers on a subscription basis, allowing businesses to use AI models from OpenAI, including ChatGPT, or Anthropic’s Claude.
The platform’s appeal to large organisations includes controls over access to corporate data and workflows, helping them deploy AI while managing security and confidentiality risks.
Microsoft shares rose 3.9 per cent to $US551.33 in after-hours trading, near a record high, as investors focused on the company’s ability to turn corporate demand for AI into a growing source of revenue.
The rub is that the same technology being sold to employers as a productivity tool is also fuelling concerns that it could eliminate jobs by automating work previously performed by employees.
Last week National Australia Bank announced plans to cut 2500 jobs by June next year, with Barclays Bank revealed 5000 redundancies.
Australia’s Finance Sector Union claims 10,000 jobs have been lost in the past two years, although it’s unclear how many of the cuts can be tied to AI’s disruptive rise.
Microsof is also reportedly preparing to offer voluntary redundancies to as many as 60,000 employees, out of a global workforce of about 223,000.
Mr Nadella did not address the potential lay-offs, even as the technology it’s selling to corporate customers intensifies the threat of automation for white-collar workers.
Elsewhere, on Thursday morning shares in Alphabet-parent Google slumped as investors worried its Search business is being disrupted by AI.
Alphabet’s advertising revenue for the quarter finished at $US82.01b, short of analysts’ estimates in a sign that AI is potentially cannibalising Google’s Search business.
Heavy investment in AI infrastructure also contributed to a $US9.1b free cash outflow for the quarter.
Shares in Alphabet tumbled 9.8 per cent in futures markets and are likely to erase all of calendar year 2026’s gains when Wall Street opens on Thursday.
