Microsoft defaults GitHub Copilot to OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol for token efficiency

<cite index="1">Microsoft is telling developers working on AI coding projects to rely on OpenAI's top-tier model over rival products in a bid to maximize efficiency. Jay Parikh, executive vice president of Microsoft's CoreAI engineering group, said in a memo that coders should default to OpenAI's flagship GPT-5.6 Sol</cite>. <cite index="1">Parikh wrote, "Internally, shifting more workloads to OpenAI models helps us get greater value from our token investment"</cite>.

<cite index="1">While Microsoft has built its own artificial intelligence programming model and gives cloud customers access to over 11,000 models, including from Anthropic, the company wants staffers to take advantage of valuable intellectual property rights that come from the software giant's early investment in OpenAI</cite>. <cite index="1">OpenAI released GPT-5.6 Sol in July</cite>. <cite index="1">The guidance comes nine months after OpenAI completed a corporate restructuring that included extending IP rights for Microsoft through 2032</cite>.

<cite index="1">Efficiency in AI spending is becoming increasingly important across corporate America after a brief era of so-called tokenmaxxing, when developers were encouraged to run up large token bills without worrying about their output</cite>. For practitioners: Microsoft's move consolidates spending against OpenAI's frontier model and signals both the maturation of token-unit economics and pressure on Microsoft's capex at a time when the hyperscaler's free cash flow fell 23% year-over-year despite strong AI adoption.