The company seems to have quietly begun “scraping” AI training data from information people are typing in to its desktop publishing program Word and its spreadsheet tool Excel.

Web scraping is the process of using automated software, like bots, to extract structured data from websites.

The latest claims stem from an X post by @nixCraft, who accuses Microsoft of turning on an opt-out feature that automatically scrapes Word and Excel documents for AI training.

Currently, AI-based tools have elevated the efficiency, intelligence level, and convenience of web scraping to a new height. This guide will introduce eight outstanding AI web scraping tools of 2025, ...

A definitive guide (for marketers, developers and everyday users) on what web scraping is and how to use it.

After Office Software Outage, Microsoft Faces Allegations of Data Scraping in Word and Excel Reports that the tech giant is taking user data through its best known business software to train its ...