Microsoft Denies Allegations of Misusing User Data

Microsoft on Wednesday dismissed allegations that it leverages customer data from its Microsoft 365 applications, such as Word and Excel, to train its artificial intelligence models.

The response came after some users pointed out on social media that the company requires users to opt out of its “connected experiences” feature, which they argued was used to train AI models.

“These claims are untrue. Microsoft does not use customer data from Microsoft 365 consumer and commercial applications to train foundational large language models,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that the “connected experiences” enable features such as co-authoring and cloud storage and have no connection to how the company trains its large language models.

The conversations on social media indicate that people remain concerned about their data being used to train AI models without permission.

REUTERS