Microsoft has been investing considerably in the development of its AI technologies, however, it appears that the company is now experiencing some “blockages” with its tools.
According to the Axios portal, Microsoft Copilot, the company’s AI solution, may have recently been blocked on US congressional devices. The indication would have come from an internal memo from the organization, which is now blocking access to Copilot from all of the entity’s devices.
Among the reasons given for blocking is the risk of potentially sensitive or national security information ending up being sent to Microsoft systems, subsequently being used to train AI models.
Although there is nothing concrete about blocking users’ personal devices, access from Congress computers and smartphones to Copilot is now blocked.
It should be noted that this measure will not be unprecedented. It was just over a year ago that authorities also applied similar limiting measures to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, due to the same risk that sensitive information could be shared for AI training models. The free version of ChatGPT is banned from Congress, but the ChatGPT Plus version is still available due to its higher privacy standards.
In a statement, Microsoft states that it recognizes that there are higher security standards regarding the use of its tools by government entities, and that the company is working to achieve them.
