Microsoft is charging headlong into the age of superintelligence, but the road ahead is narrowing from two directions at once. The software giant’s AI chief, Mustafa Suleyman, has set a blistering 18-month horizon for artificial intelligence to match human performance across most office-based roles — a prediction that directly targets accounting, marketing, and project management. Yet even as the company pours capital into that vision, regulators in London have opened a formal investigation that could reshape how Microsoft sells its enterprise software stack.
The tension was reflected in the share price on Friday. Microsoft stock rallied 3.42% to close at €362.95, clawing back some ground after a bruising start to the year. Even with that bounce, the shares are still down roughly 10% year-to-date, and they trade 22.36% below their 52-week high — a reminder of how much skepticism the market continues to price in.
London puts software bundling under the microscope
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority launched a formal probe last week to determine whether Microsoft holds a “strategic market status” in enterprise software under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. At the heart of the inquiry is the company’s practice of tightly bundling products such as Windows, Word, Excel, Teams and the Copilot AI assistant. The CMA wants to know whether that integration weakens rivals and leaves customers with fewer choices.
A second strand of the investigation focuses on access for third-party AI providers. The regulator will examine how easily competitors can plug their applications into Microsoft’s workplace software ecosystem. Microsoft has responded by saying it will work “quickly and constructively” with the CMA. The probe has a nine-month timetable, with a final decision on any potential remedies or sanctions expected by February 2027.
A $190 billion bet on going it alone
Suleyman’s superintelligence push is driving a parallel strategic shift: Microsoft is accelerating its move away from external partners toward proprietary, independent AI systems. That pivot comes with a staggering price tag. The company plans capital expenditure of roughly $190 billion for calendar 2026, allocated primarily to server infrastructure to relieve the capacity bottlenecks that have constrained the AI sector.
The scale of the bet is underpinned by a massive $627 billion order backlog that provides revenue visibility for years to come. Quarterly results released in recent weeks showed total sales rising 18% to nearly $83 billion, with the Azure cloud business growing 40%. The operating momentum gives Microsoft the financial firepower to absorb short-term cost pressures while expanding its market position.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Microsoft?
Security: one vulnerability closed, another revolution underway
On the security front, Microsoft is fighting a two-front war. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency recently added a zero-day vulnerability in the Exchange Server to its catalog of actively exploited flaws. The bug allows attackers to run malicious scripts in users’ browsers via manipulated Outlook Web Access emails. Microsoft has pushed automatic patches through its emergency update service, though companies with restrictive network settings must apply the fix manually.
At the same time, the company unveiled MDASH — a multi-model agentic scanning harness that uses more than 100 specialized AI agents to hunt for exploitable weaknesses in complex code. In tests, MDASH identified 16 previously unpublished vulnerabilities in Windows networking and authentication systems, four of them critical for remote access. The system detected 96% of confirmed MSRC vulnerabilities from the past five years in the clfs.sys driver and 100% in tcpip.sys. On the public CyberGym benchmark, MDASH posted an 88.45% success rate, roughly five percentage points ahead of the next-best result. Microsoft is already using MDASH internally and has begun private previews with select customers.
Quiet dealmaking amid antitrust caution
The company continues to scout for AI talent, but regulatory sensitivities are influencing its approach. According to a Reuters report, Microsoft has been in discussions with Inception, a small Stanford-area startup that applies diffusion techniques — familiar from image and video generation — to language models, allowing parallel refinement of text rather than sequential token generation. Inception is reportedly seeking a valuation north of $1 billion, and SpaceX has also shown interest. Microsoft stepped away from a potential deal with the coding assistant Cursor earlier this year, however, citing antitrust concerns tied to its existing position with GitHub Copilot.
Mixed technical signals, a bullish analyst floor
The technical picture has brightened in the near term. Microsoft’s stock now trades 5.87% above its 50-day moving average, but it still sits 8.55% below the 200-day line. Analysts remain broadly constructive: a consensus of 37 experts rates the stock “Strong Buy” with an average price target of $569.46, well above the recent US closing level.
For income-oriented investors, the next concrete milestone comes at the end of May, when Microsoft shares trade ex-dividend. The quarterly payout of $0.91 per share is scheduled to arrive in June.
Between the nine-month clock in London and the 18-month timeline for AI disruption, Microsoft has two distinct deadlines fast approaching. How the company navigates the regulatory maze while executing its superintelligence strategy will determine whether this year’s discount becomes a buying opportunity — or a warning.
Ad
Microsoft Stock: Buy or Sell?! New Microsoft Analysis from May 17 delivers the answer:
The latest Microsoft figures speak for themselves: Urgent action needed for Microsoft investors. Is it worth buying or should you sell? Find out what to do now in the current free analysis from May 17.
Microsoft: Buy or sell? Read more here...
