--- title: "Microsoft Secretly Selling AI to Fossil Fuel Companies While Bragging About Environmental Progress" description: "Microsoft has secretly been selling AI to oil companies and claiming it can help them make even more money while degrading the climate. " date: "2024-09-14" modified: "2024-09-14" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai.md" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/microsoft-secret-oil-company-pitches" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Environment" - "Science & Energy" tags: - "Fossil Fuels" - "microsoft" - "oil companies" - "the digest" --- # Microsoft Secretly Selling AI to Fossil Fuel Companies While Bragging About Environmental Progress ![Microsoft has secretly been selling AI to oil companies and claiming it can help them make even more money while degrading the climate. ]() *MIDDLESBROUGH, ENGLAND - JULY 19: The Brent Charlie topside oil rig is towed on the Allseas Iron Lady cargo barge into the mouth of the River Tees as it heads for dismantling at the Able Seaton Port yard on July 19, 2024 in Middlesbrough, England. The 32,000-tonne Brent Charlie is the last rig from the Brent Field in the North Sea off the UK's east coast. At one point, the Brent Field produced 184 million barrels of oil a year, earning billions for Shell and tax revenues for the Exchequer. Of the four oil platforms needed to extract oil, Brents Alpha, Bravo, and Delta have already been scrapped. The Brent Field is one of many North Sea fields closing down and plugging wells. The removal of the Brent Charlie topside at the Brent oil field by the crane ship, Pioneering Spirit, was the heaviest offshore platform single-lift removal in history. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images) \Image: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images\* ## Pitch Dreck While projecting an image of sustainability, Microsoft has secretly been selling bespoke AI services to fossil fuel giants and claiming it can help them make [even more money]() while [killing the climate](). As [*The Atlantic*'s Karen Hao reports](), whistleblowers say that the tech giant has been pitching all manner of wild promises to oil companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron — and working to hide that fact from the public. After reviewing troves of documents and speaking to dozens of former and current Microsoft employees, Hao found that Microsoft is providing oil companies with AI algorithms designed to help them "maximize" their potential by predicting where best to drill. In a 2022 pitch deck the reporter acquired, for instance, Microsoft claimed that its AI tools could help ExxonMobil increase its annual revenue by $1.4 billion. Of that figure, $600 million of that slated revenue would come from so-called "sustainable production," which purportedly allows for fossil fuel drilling that uses less energy. While making these lofty pitches, the AI-bullish tech monstrosity also ambitiously pledged since 2020 to become "[carbon negative]()" by the year 2030, and has since [championed its AI]() as being a driving force for sustainability. Announcements of [Microsoft's partnerships]() with [oil and gas companies]() since have left out that the tech giant is helping some of these polluters streamline their drilling processes. ## Neg Off Microsoft repeatedly insisted that its goal of corporate carbon negativity is not at odds with the work its oil and gas clients do because its algorithms supposedly help them drill more efficiently. As Hao notes, the claim that Microsoft's AI can help increase production while reducing emissions became something of a mantra in company materials and interviews with the tech corporation and its clients. Obviously, that logic is flawed: one cannot claim to be a climate champion while also helping oil companies drill for finite combustible resources that are very plainly destroying the planet, regardless of what greenwashing talking points Microsoft's salespeople use. Indeed, some employees, including an environmentalist ex-Microsofter who now [lobbies against her former employer](), suggested to Hao that the idea was preposterous. "All of Microsoft’s public statements and publications paint a beautiful picture of the uses of AI for sustainability," Holly Alpine, a former Microsoft sustainability program manager who left the company earlier this year after nearly a decade, told *The Atlantic*. "But this focus on the positives is hiding the whole story, which is much darker." After pushing back against the company's tacit support for fossil fuel extraction for years, Alpine eventually became disillusioned enough to leave the software giant. Microsoft, meanwhile, has "not committed to a timeline" to cutting ties with its oil clients, according to a spokesperson who spoke with *The Atlantic*. **More on Microsoft:** [*Microsoft Is Losing a Staggering Amount of Money on AI*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()