No AI Porn: Microsoft AI Chief Mustafa Suleyman Draws Line on Chatbot Capabilities

Microsoft is not considering erotic or pornographic content as a Copilot offering, the company reportedly clarified on Thursday. The Redmond-based tech giant released 12 new artificial intelligence (AI) features on October 23, as part of its fall release. The new additions include an avatar, agentic capabilities for the Edge browser, a collaboration mode, and improvements to health-related queries. However, unlike OpenAI and xAI, the company reportedly will not lean toward “simulated erotica.” The comment comes at a time when the global AI sextech market is growing at a significant rate.

Do Not Expect Erotica from Copilot, Says Microsoft's AI Chief

According to a CNBC report, Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, has confirmed that the company's AI services will not include any pornographic or sexual content. Calling it “simulated erotica”, the executive reportedly said, “That's just not a service we're going to provide. Other companies will build that.”

Suleyman's comment arrived just weeks after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reiterated the company's “Treat adult users as adults” principle, and highlighted that ChatGPT will soon let verified adults generate erotica. Microsoft distancing itself from OpenAI's approach is also interesting, given that Copilot is powered by the same AI models. However, in its defence, the Copilot maker has recently started powering its chatbot with Anthropic models as well.

OpenAI is not the only one exploring the AI porn market. Elon Musk's xAI has provided a “not safe for work” (NSFW) mode, an Internet slang for violent or sexual content, for Grok Imagine and the AI avatar Ani. Although it is not possible to generate nudity with the chatbot.

Even before these companies, Replika and Character.AI have offered roleplay-based erotic conversations as a service to users. Replika, a company which offers AI chatbots as companions, has more than 10 million downloads on Google Play, highlighting the popularity of such offerings.

According to Market Growth Reports, a market research firm, the global AI sextech market size was valued at $2.33 billion (roughly Rs. 20,500 crore) in 2024, and is expected to reach $5.43 billion (roughly Rs. 47,000 crore) by 2033 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.15 percent.