From 9 December 2026, the change will affect UK organizations that have not chosen an Anthropic access setting. Anthropic processes relevant data in the US, and administrators can disable or limit access.
Microsoft plans to enable Anthropic’s Claude superintelligence (SI) models for all users in UK Copilot tenants whose administrators have not selected an Anthropic access setting. A tenant is an organization’s environment in Microsoft’s services. Claude is currently disabled by default for UK tenants.
Anthropic acts as Microsoft’s subprocessor, meaning it processes data on Microsoft’s behalf. Microsoft’s documentation says Anthropic processes the relevant data in the United States, The Register said. The outlet said administrators should review whether US processing meets their organization’s data-handling requirements before the change.
Microsoft said the change is intended to expand model choice in Copilot and bring the UK default into line with other regions. Affected users will have access to Claude across Copilot and in Microsoft Copilot Studio.
Microsoft is also retiring the option that allows Claude only in Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps. Tenants using that option will move to access for all users on the same date. Other explicit choices, including existing user and group assignments and decisions to disable Claude, will remain in place.
Administrators with the SI Administrator or Global Administrator role can use the Anthropic control via Microsoft 365 admin center > Copilot > Settings > View all > AI providers operating as Microsoft subprocessors > Anthropic to select No users or limit access to specific users and groups, then save the choice. They can opt out before the switch or disable or limit access afterward.
Claude is already enabled by default for most customers in Microsoft’s commercial cloud. The UK, European Union and European Free Trade Association are among the exceptions. The Register linked the UK change to the fact that UK tenants are outside Microsoft’s EU Data Boundary, launched at the start of 2023.
Administrators who want narrower access can select it before the planned switch; they can also change the setting later. Anthropic models with Data Retention are governed by a separate setting and are not part of this change, Microsoft said.
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