Rumors have been adrift on social media about Microsoft, the multinational tech-giant, is reportedly using MS Word and MS Excel users’ data for training its AI models.
While Microsoft is massively attired in the AI ecosystem, the reports suggest such an action as the company is credible to do so, but would they? To address these accusations, Microsoft has determined to take these concerns into its own hands and to clarify all these inquiries once and for all.
As reported by News18, this confusion arose from a privacy setting in Microsoft Office that allowed features like online image search or any internet-based search, but these settings haven’t specified AI training in their acknowledgment.
The concerns over user data started when Microsoft required users to opt-out of its feature “connected experiences.” Users claimed that this feature is used to train company’s AI models.
While clarifying, a Microsoft spokesperson said to Reuters that these allegations are false and the company does not use any data from Microsoft 365 and its commercial applications to train large language models (LMMs).
The spokesperson further added that the “connected experiences” permit functionalities like co-authoring and cloud storage, which is not connected to the company’s AI-training facility.
Microsoft is not the only big-tech company that has faced this issue, before this other companies like Adobe and Google have also faced the same problems with their content policy and AI Gemini.
Read: OpenAI gets $1.5B funding from SoftBank in a latest deal
