Microsoft restricts employees’ access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks during the OpenAI DevDay event on November 06, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, delivered the keynote at the first-ever Open AI DevDay conference.

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Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI. But for a brief period on Thursday, employees of the software company were not allowed to use the startup’s most popular product, ChatGPT, CNBC has learned.

“Due to security and data concerns, a number of AI tools are no longer available for employees to use,” Microsoft said in an update on an internal website. CNBC also saw a screenshot that showed that ChatGPT could not be accessed on the company’s devices.

Representatives for Microsoft and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“While it is true that Microsoft has invested in OpenAI, and that ChatGPT has built-in safeguards to prevent improper use, the site is nonetheless an external, third-party service,” Microsoft said. “This means that you should be careful when using it due to privacy and security risks. This applies to any other external AI services, such as Midjourney or Replika as well.”

The company initially said it was banning ChatGPT and design software Canva, but later removed a line in the advisory that included those products. After the initial publication of this story, Microsoft restored access to ChatGPT.

Many major companies have restricted the use of ChatGPT, often to prevent sharing confidential data. Trained on extensive Internet data, ChatGPT composes human-like responses to people’s chat messages. The service has more than 100 million users.

Microsoft’s update recommends people use the company’s Bing Chat tool, which is based on OpenAI artificial intelligence models. The two companies are closely linked. Microsoft has also been busy this year rolling out updates to its Windows operating system and Office applications that leverage OpenAI services, which in turn run on Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure.

Earlier this week, CEO Satya Nadella appeared on stage alongside OpenAI’s Sam Altman at the startup’s first developer conference.

Altman wrote in A mail On X late Thursday that “rumors that we are banning Microsoft 365 in retaliation are completely unfounded.”

In January, a senior Microsoft engineer wrote in a forum that employees could use ChatGPT but advised against entering confidential information. From the inside mentioned.

Earlier this week, a hacking group called Anonymous Sudan He said he targeted ChatGPT In an attack because of “OpenAI’s cooperation with the Israeli occupying state” and because Altman said he was “ready to invest more in Israel.”

He watches: OpenAI is on track to achieve $1.3 billion in revenue in 2023, up 4,543% from last year.