Microsoft Cites 30 Million Copilot Seats as AWS Speeds Up Cloud Growth

Microsoft puts a number on Copilot adoption

Microsoft said Microsoft 365 Copilot surpassed 30 million paid seats in fiscal year 2026, offering a clearer measure of commercial adoption for its AI assistant embedded in workplace software. The company disclosed the figure in its fourth-quarter earnings materials, alongside the news that Azure revenue exceeded $100 billion for the full fiscal year.

The paid-seat metric is significant because it refers to customers paying for Microsoft 365 Copilot, rather than broader usage of Microsoft’s consumer or enterprise AI features. Microsoft did not provide a separate Copilot revenue figure in its earnings release, but the seat count shows the product has reached a substantial installed base.

Microsoft framed the results as evidence of continued demand across its cloud and AI portfolio. Azure’s revenue milestone also reflects the scale of the company’s infrastructure business as customers increase spending on cloud computing and AI services.

AWS records its fastest growth in 18 quarters

Amazon reported that Amazon Web Services revenue increased 36.7% year over year in the second quarter of 2026. According to Amazon’s quarterly results, that was AWS’s fastest rate of expansion in 18 quarters.

Amazon also said its AWS AI business and its custom-chip business had each passed $25 billion in annualized revenue run rate. The company did not break out the underlying revenue components for those businesses in the cited results, but the disclosures point to growing commercial activity around AI services and the infrastructure used to run them.

AWS is Amazon’s cloud computing division, providing services spanning computing, storage, databases, networking and AI to companies and public-sector organizations. Its growth acceleration arrives as major technology companies spend heavily to expand the data-center capacity needed for AI workloads.

The Associated Press separately reported that AWS revenue grew about 37% during the April-to-June period, consistent with Amazon’s reported figure. AP said Amazon’s increased investment in AI and related technology accompanied the stronger AWS performance.

Amazon lifts planned capital spending

Following its second-quarter results, Amazon raised planned capital spending for 2026 to $220 billion, the Associated Press reported. The investment is intended to support AI and other technology initiatives.

The spending increase illustrates the financial demands of the competition among large cloud providers. Building AI capacity requires more than acquiring processors: companies also need servers, data-center space, networking equipment, electricity infrastructure and systems to operate those facilities.

Microsoft’s Copilot disclosure and Amazon’s AWS figures show two different paths to AI commercialization. Microsoft highlighted paid adoption of an AI application within productivity software, while Amazon emphasized demand for cloud infrastructure, AI services and chips. Together, the results suggest that AI is becoming increasingly material to both companies’ cloud businesses, although the returns on their expanding infrastructure investments will continue to be closely watched.

Sources

• Microsoft, “Microsoft Cloud and AI Strength Fuels Fourth Quarter Results”
• Amazon, “Amazon.com Announces Second Quarter Results”
• Associated Press, “Amazon to boost spending on AI and other technology by $20 billion after strong Q2 results”