In a statement released on Wednesday, a Harvard spokesperson confirmed that Microsoft will pay a licensing fee for the partnership, which was established through Harvard Health Publishing, the consumer health division of Harvard Medical School.
The collaboration marks a significant step in Microsoft’s ongoing effort to diversify its artificial intelligence partnerships and reduce reliance on OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, whose models currently power most of Microsoft’s Copilot tools.
According to The Wall Street Journal, which first broke the story, the deal will enable Microsoft to integrate Harvard Health Publishing’s medically reviewed content into the next version of Copilot, its AI assistant built into Word, Outlook, and other Microsoft applications.
The enhanced version of Copilot — expected to roll out as early as this month — will be capable of answering user questions on medical and wellness topics with information sourced directly from Harvard’s health publications.
Until now, Copilot has relied largely on OpenAI’s models to generate responses and assist users across Microsoft’s productivity suite. However, the company has been steadily expanding its AI ecosystem by partnering with Anthropic, integrating its Claude model, and developing proprietary AI systems to strengthen its independence and broaden its knowledge sources.
The licensing deal with Harvard adds a new layer of credibility to Microsoft’s health-related offerings and signals a growing trend among major tech firms to forge direct relationships with trusted academic institutions to ensure quality and accuracy in AI-generated content.