Microsoft hits back at claims AI data scraping was sneakily turned on in Word, Excel

• Concerns are raised over Microsoft’s use of customer data for AI training
• But the company confirmed it does not use customer data to train LLMs
• Publicly available information is considered open for training

Microsoft’s use of so-called ‘Connected Experiences’ has come under scrutiny following claims it collected user-generated content to train its AI models.

The latest claims stem from an X post by @nixCraft, who accuses Microsoft of turning on an opt-out feature that automatically scrapes Word and Excel documents for AI training.

@nixCraft continues: “This setting is turned on by default, and you have to manually uncheck a box in order to opt out.”

Microsoft says it doesn’t train AI on your documents

Concerns were raised about the use of proprietary content belonging to writers and creators who wish to protect, copyright or sell their content. The X user even shared steps on ...