Microsoft is outsourcing its best AI, tech CEO says — and that’s good news for Google
This photograph shows a screen displaying the logo of Bard AI, a conversational artificial intelligence software application developed by Google, and ChatGPT.
Lionel Bonaventure | Afp | Getty Images
LONDON — Microsoft is handing over the development of all of its best artificial intelligence tools and software to OpenAI, according to one tech CEO — which could be a boon for arch-rival Google.
Todd McKinnon, CEO of identity security firm Okta, told CNBC on Friday that as Google looks to defend its position in search, it is “probably doing the best job of actually not having to outsource their R&D.”
He noted that the so-called transformers that power today’s generative AI technologies “all came from Google.”
Transformers are deep-learning models that learn context and thus meaning by tracking relationships in sequential data, such as words.
“This all came from Google, with DeepMind and the research,” McKinnon said. “I mean, the breakthrough was the research from Google, the transformers which are the algorithm that all these LLMs [large language models] are using to make these big advancements.”
Microsoft as an AI ‘consultancy’
McKinnon added that there’s a risk Microsoft’s position in AI becomes reduced to that of a “consultancy.” Microsoft was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
It comes as a number of the firm’s top products — such as Copilot, the firm’s generative AI chatbot, and PCs that are equipped with generative AI software — incorporate tech made by OpenAI, the lab behind artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT.
Microsoft has plowed billions of dollars into OpenAI, with its total investment to date reportedly swelling to $13 billion. In Jan. 2023, the tech giant said its investment would “accelerate AI breakthroughs to ensure these benefits are broadly shared with the world.”
“It’s so bizarre,” McKinnon told CNBC. “Imagine working at Microsoft. OpenAI is over there making all the exciting stuff. It’s almost like Microsoft is going to turn into a consulting company.”
Still, Google has a mountain to climb if it’s going to achieve commercial success with its own AI investments.
Microsoft has effectively become the leader in the push toward foundation AI models given its investment in and partnership with OpenAI. This has raised concerns that Google’s position in search could be undermined, as internet users increasingly turn to ChatGPT and other AI chatbots for their search needs.
Google’s own AI efforts, meanwhile, have been beset by a number of public blunders.
Last year, when Google unveiled its Gemini AI chatbot (called Bard at the time), an ad on social media site X showed it giving the wrong answer to a user question. More recently, Google Gemini, as the product is now known, started creating ahistorical images from prompts about history.
Google subsequently pulled its Gemini image generator tool for pictures of people and is yet to reinstate the product while it investigates a fix.
Huge investments needed to succeed
McKinnon noted that AI is a rare segment of technology that has stemmed from substantial backing from major tech giants, rather than organic investments into new product cycles, as was the case with the PC and cloud computing.
“It’s different than other generations of technology like with personal computers, where it was not necessarily the biggest companies in the world that had the advantage, because the whole thing about personal computers is they were truly disruptive in the sense that they were almost toys,” McKinnon said.
“There’s no new AI model that’s like a toy. The only reason OpenAI can get it working is because the great R&D that they needed — $10 billion from Microsoft, to run the model — that wasn’t like a disruptive thing, that was a $10 billion investment.”
He added that Big Tech’s mammoth investments into AI create some competition concerns.
The “biggest risk” McKinnon sees for the cybersecurity industry going forward is that AI issues stemming from the digital giants — such as disinformation — will “stunt the progress in technology.”
“The potential [for] artificial intelligence is really high,” he said, but added: “I actually expect the swing of regulation to go so far that we leave only the biggest, most powerful companies in control of AI.”
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, not pictured, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.
Jim Lo Scalzo | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tesla shares have dropped 7% from Friday’s closing price of $323.63 to the $300.71 close on Tuesday ahead of the company’s second-quarter deliveries report.
Wall Street analysts are expecting Tesla to report deliveries of around 387,000 — a 13% decline compared to deliveries of nearly 444,000 a year ago, according to a consensus compiled by FactSet. Prediction market Kalshi told CNBC on Tuesday that its traders forecast deliveries of around 364,000.
Shares in the electric vehicle maker had been rising after Tesla started a limited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in late June and CEO Elon Musk boasted of its first “driverless delivery” of a car to a customer there.
The stock price took a turn after Musk on Saturday reignited a feud with President Donald Trump over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the massive spending bill that the commander-in-chief endorsed. The bill is now heading for a final vote in the House.
That legislation would benefit higher-income households in the U.S. while slashing spending on programs such as Medicaid and food assistance.
Musk did not object to cuts to those specific programs. However, Musk on X said the bill would worsen the U.S. deficit and raise the debt ceiling. The bill includes tax cuts that would add around $3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
The Tesla CEO has also criticized aspects of the bill that would cut hundreds of billions of dollars in support for renewable energy development in the U.S. and phase out tax credits for electric vehicles.
Such changes could hurt Tesla as they are expected to lower EV sales by roughly 100,000 vehicles per year by 2035, according to think tank Energy Innovation.
The bill is also expected to reduce renewable energy development by more than 350 cumulative gigawatts in that same time period, according to Energy Innovation. That could pressure Tesla’s Energy division, which sells solar and battery energy storage systems to utilities and other clean energy project developers.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that Musk was, “upset that he’s losing his EV mandate,” but that the tech CEO could “lose a lot more than that.” Trump was alluding to the subsidies, incentives and contracts that Musk’s many businesses have relied on.
SpaceX has received over $22 billion from work with the federal government since 2008, according to FedScout, which does federal spending and government contract research. That includes contracts from NASA, the U.S. Air Force and Space Force, among others.
Tesla has reported $11.8 billion in sales of “automotive regulatory credits,” or environmental credits, since 2015, according to an evaluation of the EV maker’s financial filings by Geoff Orazem, CEO of FedScout.
These incentives are largely derived from federal and state regulations in the U.S. that require automakers to sell some number of low-emission vehicles or buy credits from companies like Tesla, which often have an excess.
Regulatory credit sales go straight to Tesla’s bottom line. Credit revenue amounted to approximately 60% of Tesla’s net income in the second quarter of 2024.
WATCH: Threats to SpaceX & Tesla as Musk, Trump feud heats up
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos leaves Aman Venice hotel, on the second day of the wedding festivities of Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez, in Venice, Italy, June 27, 2025.
Yara Nardi | Reuters
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos unloaded more than 3.3 million shares of his company in a sale valued at roughly $736.7 million, according to a financial filing on Tuesday.
The stock sale is part of a previously arranged trading plan adopted by Bezos in March. Under that arrangement, Bezos plans to sell up to 25 million shares of Amazon over a period ending May 29, 2026.
Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021 but remains chairman, has been selling stock in the company at a regular clip in recent years, though he’s still the largest individual shareholder. He adopted a similar trading plan in February 2024 to sell up to 50 million shares of Amazon stock through late January of this year.
Bezos previously said he’d sell about $1 billion in Amazon stock each year to fund his space exploration company, Blue Origin. He’s also donated shares to Day 1 Academies, his nonprofit that’s building a chain of Montessori-inspired preschools across several states.
The most recent stock sale comes after Bezos and Lauren Sanchez tied the knot last week in a lavish wedding in Venice. The star-studded celebration, which took place over three days and sparked protests from some local residents, was estimated to cost around $50 million.
Bezos is ranked third in Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index with a net worth of about $240 billion. He’s behind Tesla CEO Elon Musk at $363 billion and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at $260 billion.
WATCH: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ wedding sparks Venice protests
Google CEO Sundar Pichai addresses the crowd during Google’s annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California on May 20, 2025.
Camille Cohen | AFP | Getty Images
The Google Doodle is Alphabet’s most valuable piece of real estate, and on Tuesday, the company used that space to promote “AI Mode,” its latest AI search product.
Google’s Chrome browser landing pages and Google’s home page featured an animated image that, when clicked, leads users to AI Mode, the company’s latest search product. The doodle image also includes a share button.
The promotion of AI Mode on the Google Doodle comes as the tech company makes efforts to expose more users to its latest AI features amid pressure from artificial intelligence startups. That includes OpenAI which makes ChatGPT, Anthropic which makes Claude and Perplexity AI, which bills itself as an “AI-powered answer engine.”
Google’s “Doodle” Tuesday directed users to its search chatbot-like experience “AI Mode”
AI Mode is Google’s chatbot-like experience for complex user questions. The company began displaying AI Mode alongside its search results page in March.
“Search whatever’s on your mind and get AI-powered responses,” the product description reads when clicked from the home page.
AI Mode is powered by Google’s flagship AI model Gemini, and the tool has rolled out to more U.S. users since its launch. Users can ask AI Mode questions using text, voice or images. Google says AI Mode makes it easier to find answers to complex questions that might have previously required multiple searches.
In May, Google tested the AI Mode feature directly beneath the Google search bar, replacing the “I’m Feeling Lucky” widget — a place where Google rarely makes changes.
WATCH: Google buyouts highlight tech’s cost-cutting amid AI CapEx boom
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