- An X user claimed that Microsoft has quietly enabled "Connected Experiences" in Office apps to train AI models on Word and Excel documents.
- Upon closer look, it appears that Microsoft analyzes the content to deliver some AI features and experiences in Office apps.
- Microsoft has officially refuted the claim saying that "we do not use customer data to train LLMs."
The trend of default opt-in for using user data to train AI models is increasingly rising. Recently, it was revealed that Meta used Instagram photos to train its AI. Similarly, X started using user data to train its Grok AI by default. And now, an X user (@nixcraft) claimed that Microsoft is training its AI models on Word and Excel documents. It created quite a furor on the internet.
The X post suggested that Microsoft quietly enabled “Connected Experiences” to use your private Office documents for AI training. It didn’t seek explicit user permission and opted-in users without their knowledge. After going through the post, I tried to find out about “Connected Experiences” and what its terms and details say.
First of all, the issue started with a Medium post, but it doesn’t mention the exact terms where Microsoft states that Office documents are used for AI training. In Microsoft Word, you can find the privacy settings under Account > Manage Settings > Connected Experiences. Here, it says “Experiences that analyze your content.”
The wording might have spooked users into believing that Microsoft is using Word documents to train AI models. However, when you click on “Learn more”, Microsoft’s support page says:
“Connected experiences that analyze your content are experiences that use your Office content to provide you with design recommendations, editing suggestions, data insights, and similar features. For example, PowerPoint Designer or Translator.”
Basically, when you use AI-powered features in Office apps, it analyzes your content. For example, Microsoft Editor uses your content to check for grammar. Analyze Data in Excel uses your data to find trends and patterns, and so on. Microsoft has listed all the features where it analyzes the content.
Now, if you disable “Connected Experiences”, some of these features also become unavailable in Office apps. To sum up, there is no mention of AI training for Office documents on the support page.
Finally, Microsoft also responded to the X post and said, “In the M365 apps, we do not use customer data to train LLMs. This setting only enables features requiring internet access like co-authoring a document.“
So to sum up, Microsoft doesn’t use your Word documents or Excel data to train its AI models. While some companies are indeed resorting to dubious tricks to collect your data, that is not the case here, at least for now.
