Microsoft's AI Business Surpasses Legacy Franchises, Hits $81.3B Revenue

Microsoft announced quarterly revenue of $81.3 billion, a 17% year-over-year increase, driven by unprecedented cloud and AI growth. CEO Satya Nadella revealed the company's AI business is now larger than some of its biggest franchises that took decades to build. The Microsoft Cloud surpassed $50 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time, with operating income rising 21% to $38.3 billion. Nadella highlighted key metrics like tokens per watt and significant growth in Copilot adoption across enterprise and developer tools.

Key Points: Microsoft AI Business Bigger Than Decades-Old Franchises

  • Quarterly revenue hits $81.3B
  • Cloud revenue surpasses $50B for first time
  • AI business eclipses legacy franchises
  • Microsoft 365 Copilot reaches 15M paid seats
3 min read

"We've built an AI business larger than some of our biggest franchises that took decades", says Microsoft CEO amid quarterly revenue report of USD 81.3 billion

Microsoft reports $81.3B quarterly revenue as CEO Satya Nadella reveals its AI business has already eclipsed some of its biggest legacy franchises.

"We've built an AI business larger than some of our biggest franchises that took decades - Satya Nadella"

New Delhi, January 29

Microsoft Corp. has announced its financial results for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, reporting revenue of USD 81.3 billion, a 17 per cent increase compared to the same period last fiscal year.

Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft, stated on X that the company is still in the beginning phases of AI diffusion and its broad impact on gross domestic product. He noted that Microsoft has already built an AI business larger than some of its biggest franchises that took decades to build. He noted that Microsoft's quarterly cloud revenue surpassed the USD 50 billion mark for the first time.

As per a release, the company saw its operating income rise by 21 per cent to USD 38.3 billion, while net income on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis reached USD 38.5 billion, marking a 60 per cent growth. Diluted earnings per share on a GAAP basis stood at USD 5.16.

"Microsoft Cloud revenue crossed USD 50 billion this quarter, reflecting the strong demand for our portfolio of services," said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft. She added that the company exceeded expectations across revenue, operating income, and earnings per share. Non-GAAP net income, which excludes the impact from investments in OpenAI, was reported at USD 30.9 billion, an increase of 23 per cent.

Nadella also highlighted that annual cloud revenue was USD 10 billion less than 10 years ago, attributing the current growth to expanding the total addressable market and execution. He further explained that, "The key metric we are optimizing for is tokens per watt and per dollar, which is all about increasing utilization and decreasing TCO using silicon, systems, and software."

As per Nadella, Microsoft achieved a 50 per cent increase in throughput for OpenAI inferencing, which powers its Copilot.

The company is also focusing on its new first-party systems, such as Maia 200, and its agent platform. Nadella stated that software is being rewritten in this platform shift, where agents are viewed as the new apps.

He confirmed that over 1,500 customers have used both Anthropic and OpenAI models on Foundry, with more than 250 customers on track to process over one trillion tokens on the platform this year.

Operational momentum was reported across various segments, with the Microsoft 365 Copilot reaching 15 million paid seats. GitHub Copilot subscribers rose 75 per cent year-over-year to 4.7 million, while healthcare documentation encounters increased over three times to 21 million.

Nadella said that the company feels confident in its ability to innovate and capture future opportunities as diffusion accelerates.

- ANI

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Reader Comments

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Priya S
$50 billion cloud revenue in a quarter is mind-blowing! But I hope this AI boom also creates meaningful jobs in India, not just automation that replaces them. Our IT sector needs to adapt fast. The 15 million Copilot seats show how quickly this is being adopted.
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Aman W
Respect to Satya Nadella, an Indian leading global tech. But honestly, when will we see Indian companies building something at this scale? We have the talent. Jio is trying with AI, but we need more homegrown giants. This is a wake-up call.
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Rebecca D
The healthcare documentation encounters tripling to 21 million is the real story here. If AI can reduce doctor admin burden in India, it could revolutionize our overburdened public health system. That's the kind of impact we need.
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Vikram M
"Agents are the new apps" – this is the future. In India, where mobile internet is huge but many are not tech-savvy, AI agents in local languages could be a game-changer. Microsoft and others should focus on robust Indic language models.
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Karan T
With great power comes great responsibility. These profits are staggering. I hope a significant portion is reinvested into ethical AI research and ensuring the technology doesn't widen the digital divide, especially in developing economies like India.

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