Microsoft is blocking employee access to Perplexity AI, one of the largest customers of its Azure OpenAI service, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Perplexity’s product is an AI chatbot search engine that provides conversational answers. It’s powered by Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service, which helps companies like Walmart and JPMorgan Chase build generative AI into their operations and products. Microsoft on Tuesday also announced Coca-Cola signed a $1.1 billion deal that included services with Azure OpenAI.
BI viewed a screenshot of a notification blocking an employee device from accessing Perplexity’s website. It’s unclear when the restriction started or if it applies across the company. Microsoft declined to comment.
While many companies restrict employee access to AI tools, Microsoft is generally more lax about its partners. Microsoft briefly blocked OpenAI’s ChatGPT from employee devices last fall, and it later said it was by mistake.
Microsoft does block other AI tools, like Google’s Gemini chatbot, on employee devices, the people said.
Other companies have similar policies. Amazon’s internal third-party generative AI use and interaction policy, viewed by BI, warns that the companies offering generative AI services may take a license to or ownership over anything employees input into tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
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