# Microsoft might put China’s DeepSeek inside Copilot to tame its AI bills > Source: > Published: 2026-06-17 12:40:36+00:00 Microsoft is considering putting a Chinese AI model inside its enterprise Copilot, and the reason is money. The company told Axios it is exploring a self-hosted, fine-tuned version of DeepSeek V4, or another open-source model, as a cheaper option to power Copilot Cowork, the agentic assistant in its Microsoft 365 suite. It expects to offer a lower-cost model within weeks. At the same time, Microsoft is moving Copilot Cowork to usage-based pricing, charging companies for the compute they actually burn rather than a flat fee. ## Why even Microsoft can’t eat the bill The shift is a window into the economics of agentic AI. Tools like Copilot Cowork, Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex call a model over and over as they work through a task, which is powerful and, it turns out, expensive. “We have users who do hundreds of tasks a week, which is great, they’re way productive, but the consequence is the costs can go very high,” said Charles Lamanna, Microsoft’s executive vice-president for Copilot, agents and platform. Copilot Cowork currently runs on Anthropic and OpenAI models, both of which have raised prices and [pulled back from all-you-can-eat plans](https://thenextweb.com/news/anthropic-lawsuit-claude-max-plans-usage-limits). Microsoft already metered GitHub Copilot for the same reason. A cheaper open-source engine underneath is the obvious next lever. ## The cheapest option happens to be Chinese That is where the calculation gets awkward. DeepSeek V4, released in April, is open-source, popular with developers and far cheaper to run, which is precisely why it is on Microsoft’s shortlist. It is also Chinese, and the timing could hardly be worse politically. Washington has floated banning DeepSeek, threatened Chinese AI firms, and just [forced Anthropic to cut off its top models for non-US users](https://thenextweb.com/news/amazon-jassy-triggered-anthropic-fable-mythos-crackdown), a dispute that escalated into [crisis talks with the Commerce Department](https://thenextweb.com/news/anthropic-commerce-meeting-fable-mythos-crisis). Microsoft is clearly aware of how this looks. It says any DeepSeek option would be optional for customers and fully hosted on Azure, keeping data inside Microsoft’s cloud under its security, compliance and data-residency controls, and that it has fine-tuned the model and added safeguards, including changes meant to reduce bias. ## A hedge against its own suppliers The bigger picture is that Microsoft no longer wants to depend on any single lab. Freed from its tight, often tense exclusivity with OpenAI, it is pushing a multi-model approach, mixing and matching engines under its own roof. For now this is an evaluation, not a decision, and Microsoft says it will confirm its choice when the cheaper tier ships. But that it is willing to even name DeepSeek as a candidate, in this climate, says a lot about how hard the cost of running agents has started to bite. ## Get the TNW newsletter Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.