MICROSOFT CORP (MSFT) Risk Factors

ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS

Our operations and financial results are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those described below, that could adversely affect our business, operations, financial condition, results of operations, liquidity, and the trading price of our common stock. Statements in this section reflect our beliefs and opinions as to matters that could adversely affect us in the future. References to past events are provided by way of example only and are not intended to be a complete listing or a representation as to whether or not such matters have occurred in the past.

STRATEGIC AND COMPETITIVE RISKS

We face intense competition across all markets for our products and services, which could adversely affect our results of operations.

Competition in the technology sector

Our competitors range in size from diversified global companies with significant research and development resources to small, specialized firms who may be more effective in deploying technical, marketing, and financial resources. Barriers to entry in many of our businesses are low and many of the areas in which we compete evolve rapidly with changing and disruptive technologies, shifting user needs, and frequent introductions of new products and services. If we do not continue to innovate and provide products, devices, and services that appeal to businesses and consumers, we may not remain competitive, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Competition among platform-based ecosystems

An important element of our business model has been to create platform-based ecosystems on which many participants can build diverse solutions. A well-established ecosystem creates beneficial network effects among users, application developers, and the platform provider that can accelerate growth. Establishing significant scale in the marketplace is necessary to meet consumer demand and to achieve and maintain attractive margins. Firms offering competing platforms may make it more difficult to attract and retain customers.

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A competing vertically-integrated model, in which a single firm controls the hardware and software elements of a product and related services, has succeeded with some consumer products such as PCs, tablets, smartphones, gaming consoles, wearables, and other endpoint devices. Competitors pursuing this model also earn revenue from services integrated with the hardware and software platform, including applications and content sold through their integrated marketplaces. They may also be able to claim security and performance benefits from their vertically-integrated offer. We also offer some vertically-integrated hardware and software products and services. Expansion of our vertically-integrated capabilities, including developing proprietary hardware, infrastructure, and artificial intelligence (“AI”) models, could increase our cost structure, reduce margins, and expose us to operational risks.

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We derive substantial revenue from licenses of Windows operating systems on PCs. We face significant competition from competing platforms developed for new types of devices, including smartphones and tablets. These devices compete on multiple bases including price and the perceived utility of the device and its platform. Users continue to turn to these devices to perform functions that in the past were performed by PCs. Even if many users view these devices as complementary to a PC, the prevalence of these devices may make it more difficult to attract application developers to our PC operating system platforms. Competing with operating systems licensed at low or no cost may decrease our PC operating system margins. Popular products or services offered on competing platforms could increase their competitive strength. In addition, some of our devices compete with products made by our OEM partners, which may affect their commitment to our platform.

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Competing platforms have content and application marketplaces with scale and significant installed bases. The variety and utility of content and applications available on a platform are important to device purchasing decisions. Users may incur costs to move data and buy new content and applications when switching platforms. To compete successfully, we must enlist developers to write applications for our platform and ensure that these applications have high quality, security, customer appeal, and value. Efforts to compete with competitors’ content and application marketplaces may increase our cost of revenue and lower our operating margins. Competitors’ rules governing their content and applications marketplaces may restrict our ability to distribute products and services through them in accordance with our technical and business model objectives.

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For all of these reasons, we may not be able to compete successfully against our current and future competitors, which could adversely affect our business, operations, financial condition, and results of operations.

Business model competition

Companies compete with us based on a growing variety of business models.

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We are investing in AI across the entire company and infusing AI capabilities into our offerings. AI technology and services are a highly competitive and rapidly evolving market, and new competitors continue to enter the market. Our AI offerings compete with AI products from hyperscalers, open-source offerings, and frontier model providers, some of which are also current or potential partners. To compete effectively we must also be responsive to technological change, new and potential regulatory developments, and public scrutiny.

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A material part of our business involves cloud-based services available across the spectrum of computing devices. We and our competitors continue to devote significant resources to developing and deploying cloud-based strategies and services for consumers and business customers.

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Even as we transition more of our business to infrastructure-, platform-, and software-as-a-service business models, the license-based proprietary software model generates a substantial portion of our software revenue. We bear the costs of converting original ideas into software products through investments in research and development, offsetting these costs with the revenue received from licensing our products. Many of our competitors also develop and sell software to businesses and consumers under this model.

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Other competitors develop and offer free applications, online services, and content, and make money by selling third-party advertising. Advertising revenue funds development of products and services these competitors provide to users at little or no cost, competing directly with our revenue-generating products.

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Some companies compete with us by modifying and then distributing open-source software at little or no cost to end users, developing, making available, or using AI models that are open, and earning revenue on advertising or integrated products and services. These firms do not bear the full costs of research and development for the open-source products. Some open-source products mimic the features and functionality of our products.

The competitive pressures described above may cause decreased sales volumes, price reductions, and/or increased operating costs, such as for research and development, marketing, and sales incentives, which could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Our cloud and AI strategy requires substantial investments and depends on evolving customer demand, technological developments, competitive dynamics, and regulatory conditions, any of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. We have made and are continuing to make significant capital and operational investments to develop, train, deploy, and support AI models and related cloud-based services, including building and expanding datacenters, acquiring necessary components, and securing energy resources. These investments are being made at significant scale and on an accelerated timeline, require substantial and increasing capital expenditures and continued access to capital, and are in advance of fully developed revenue streams. The associated revenue may not be realized in the expected timeframes or at expected levels. Our capital and operational investments are complex and involve projects in multiple locations around the world that expose us to increased compliance risks and political challenges, among others. Our ability to fund these investments depends on our ability to generate sufficient cash flows and obtain financing on acceptable terms. Adverse changes in interest rates, credit markets, investor sentiment, our credit ratings, or other factors affecting capital availability could increase our cost of capital or limit our ability to execute our infrastructure strategy. The financial success of these investments depends on a number of uncertain factors, including customer demand for cloud-based and AI products and services and continued customer use of Azure to build, train, deploy, and run AI workloads, our ability to price and monetize those services at levels sufficient to recover our costs, competitive dynamics affecting pricing, and the pace of adoption of AI. Customers may reduce, delay, or shift AI workloads to competing platforms, on-premises or local deployments, or other alternatives. If adoption of our AI services develops more slowly than expected, or if customers do not continue to utilize Azure for AI workloads at anticipated levels, we may not realize the expected returns on our investments.

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Demand for cloud-based and AI products and services is evolving and difficult to forecast. Overestimation of demand or misalignment of capacity investments may result in underutilization of infrastructure and may lead to impairment of assets on our balance sheet. Conversely, demand exceeding available capacity limits our ability to meet customer needs in a timely manner.

The cost structure for AI products and services is subject to significant uncertainty, including with respect to model training and inference costs, the availability and pricing of components, and energy costs. If these costs increase, remain elevated, or fail to decline, or if pricing for AI products and services declines as a result of competition, commoditization, or other market forces, our margins, financial condition, and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Our AI strategy also depends in part on strategic relationships with third parties that provide technologies, models, products, and services that enhance our offerings. These relationships may change over time, and many of these partners compete with us with respect to certain products and services. Changes in strategic priorities, contractual arrangements, our access to third-party technologies, or key commercial relationships could adversely affect the competitiveness of our AI products and services. In some cases, these parties are significant customers of Azure and other cloud services. The economic benefits we expect to derive from these relationships, including through commercial arrangements, technology access, and Azure consumption, may not be realized or sustained. As we manage infrastructure capacity constraints and evolving customer demand, we may modify capacity allocations, deployment priorities, pricing, or other commercial arrangements. Strategic partners and other customers may likewise adjust their purchasing decisions, deployment strategies, workloads, or anticipated use of our products and services. As a result, expected consumption or anticipated demand may not materialize, may be delayed or reduced, or may decline over time. Any such developments could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our success depends on our ability to develop, deliver, and maintain competitive cloud-based and AI products and services that achieve broad customer adoption and sustainable revenue growth. Our ability to succeed depends on our ability to develop and deliver differentiated products and services that meet evolving customer needs, achieve broad adoption, maintain customer trust, and generate sustainable revenue and growth. The markets for cloud-based and AI products and services are highly dynamic, characterized by shifting customer expectations, increasing regulatory and governmental scrutiny, intense competition, and rapid technological change, such as the accelerating importance of agentic computing. Whether we succeed in cloud-based and AI products and services depends on our execution in several areas, including:

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Continuing to bring to market compelling cloud-based and AI products and services that generate increasing traffic and market share.

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Driving customer adoption, usage, and retention of our cloud-based and AI products and services.

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Effectively monetizing our cloud-based and AI products through pricing models that reflect their value while remaining competitive.

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Attracting third parties to utilize, build on, and extend our cloud and AI platforms.

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Ensuring our cloud-based and AI services meet the reliability expectations and specific requirements of our customers and maintain the security of their data as well as help them meet their own compliance needs.

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Making our suite of cloud-based and AI products and services platform-agnostic and maintaining the utility, compatibility, and performance of our cloud-based and AI products and services on the growing array of computing devices, including PCs, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other devices.

Our success depends on our ability to execute effectively across product development, go-to-market, customer acquisition, and customer retention initiatives. Failure to do so could reduce adoption, market share, and revenue growth. If we are not effective in executing organizational and technical changes to increase efficiency and accelerate innovation, or if we fail to generate sufficient usage of our new products and services, the timing or magnitude of any revenue growth may not be in line with these costs. This could adversely affect our operations, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our cloud-based and AI products and services may be misused by customers, users, or malicious actors for unintended, fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful purposes. Our efforts to detect, prevent, and mitigate such misuse may not be successful, which could result in reputational harm, regulatory scrutiny, service disruptions, or adverse impacts on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

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RISKS RELATING TO THE EVOLUTION OF OUR BUSINESS

We make significant investments in products and services that may not achieve expected returns. We will continue to make significant investments in research, development, and marketing for existing products, services, and technologies, including AI-based products and services. We also invest in the development and acquisition of a variety of hardware for productivity, communication, and entertainment, including PCs, tablets, and gaming devices. Investments in new technology are speculative. Commercial success depends on many factors, including innovation, developer support, and effective distribution and marketing. If customers do not perceive our latest offerings as providing significant new functionality or other value, they may reduce their purchases of new software and hardware products or upgrades, unfavorably affecting revenue. We may not achieve significant revenue from new product, service, and distribution channel investments for several years, if at all. New products and services may not be profitable or may not achieve operating margins as high as we have experienced historically. We may not get engagement in certain features that drive post-sale monetization opportunities. Our data-handling practices across our products and services will continue to be under scrutiny. Perceptions of mismanagement, driven by regulatory activity or negative public reaction to our practices or product experiences, could negatively impact product and feature adoption. Developing new technologies is complex. It can require long development and testing periods. We could experience significant delays in new releases or significant problems in creating new products or services. These factors could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Acquisitions, joint ventures, and strategic alliances could have an adverse effect on our business. We expect to continue making acquisitions and entering into joint ventures and strategic alliances as part of our long-term business strategy. For example, in October 2023 we completed our acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Inc. Additionally, we have a long-term strategic partnership with OpenAI. Acquisitions and other transactions and arrangements involve significant challenges and risks, including that they do not advance our business strategy, that we get an unsatisfactory return on our investment, that they raise new compliance-related obligations and challenges, that we have difficulty integrating and retaining new employees, business systems, and technology, that they distract management from our other businesses, or that announced transactions may not be completed. If an arrangement fails to adequately anticipate changing circumstances and interests of a party, it may result in early termination or renegotiation of the arrangement. We also have limited ability to control or influence third parties with whom we have arrangements, which may impact our ability to realize the anticipated benefits. The success of these transactions and arrangements depend in part on our ability to leverage them to enhance our existing products and services or develop compelling new ones, as well as the acquired companies’ ability to meet our policies and processes in areas such as data governance, privacy, digital safety, responsible AI, and cybersecurity. It may take longer than expected to realize the full economic benefits from these transactions and arrangements, such as increased revenue or enhanced efficiencies, or the benefits may ultimately be smaller than we expected, which could cause an impairment of goodwill or intangibles. We have recorded, and may in the future be required to record, a significant charge in our consolidated financial statements during the period in which any impairment of our goodwill or amortizable intangible assets is determined, negatively affecting our results of operations. In addition, these transactions and arrangements have been and may be subject to legal and regulatory challenge. These events could adversely affect our business, operations, financial condition, and results of operations.

CYBERSECURITY, DATA PRIVACY, AND PLATFORM ABUSE RISKS

Cyberattacks and security vulnerabilities could lead to reduced revenue, increased costs, liability claims, or harm to our reputation or competitive position.

Security of our information technology

Threats to security can take a variety of forms. Threat actors, including individual and groups of hackers and sophisticated organizations, including nation-states, state-sponsored organizations, or cybercriminal groups, continuously undertake attacks that pose threats to our customers and our internal infrastructure, and we have experienced cybersecurity incidents in which such actors have gained unauthorized access to our systems and data, as well as customer, partner, and supplier systems and data. These actors use a wide variety of methods, which include developing and deploying malicious software; exploiting known, latent, or potential vulnerabilities or intentionally designed processes in our or third-party hardware, software, or other infrastructure to attack our products and services or gain access to our networks and datacenters; using social engineering and AI-assisted techniques to induce our employees, users, partners, suppliers, or customers to disclose sensitive information, such as passwords, or take other actions to gain access to our data or our users’ or customers’ data; or acting in a coordinated manner or conducting coordinated attacks. For example, as previously disclosed in our Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange

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Commission on January 19, 2024 and amended on March 8, 2024, beginning in late November 2023, a nation-state associated threat actor used a password spray attack to compromise a legacy test account and, in turn, gain access to Microsoft email accounts. The threat actor used information it obtained to gain unauthorized access to some of our source code repositories and internal systems, and the threat actor could continue to utilize this and other information to attempt to gain access to our systems or otherwise adversely affect our business and results of operations. This incident has and may continue to result in harm to our reputation and customer relationships. Nation-state and state-sponsored actors can sustain malicious activities for extended periods and deploy significant resources to plan and carry out attacks. Nation-state attacks against us, our customers, suppliers, or partners have and may continue to intensify due to our transparency to our customers, other stakeholders, and the public about cyberattacks, and during elections or periods of intense diplomatic or armed conflict. Challenges or failures to update or apply security patches to all hardware and devices connected to our systems, including end-of-life and end-of-support equipment, have and may continue to result in unauthorized access to our systems and data in the future. Cyber incidents and attacks, individually or in the aggregate, could adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations, competitive position, and reputation, or expose us to legal or regulatory risk.

Cyberthreats are constantly evolving and becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex, increasing the difficulty of preventing, detecting and successfully defending against them. Threat actors also utilize emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning to, among other things, increase the speed and scale of attacks by generating and refining malicious content and code, automate reconnaissance and targeting, accelerate their ability to detect or exploit vulnerabilities, and rapidly iterate on attack techniques, which can broaden the scope, intensity, and sophistication of campaigns and reduce the time we have to identify and mitigate emerging threats. Our current capabilities may not detect certain vulnerabilities or new attack methods, which may allow them to persist in the environment over long periods of time. It may be difficult to determine the best way to investigate, mitigate, contain, and remediate the harm caused by a cyber incident. Such efforts may not be successful, and we may make errors or fail to take necessary actions. It is possible that threat actors may gain undetected access to other networks and systems after establishing a foothold on an internal system. Cyber incidents and attacks can have cascading impacts that unfold with increasing speed across our internal networks and systems, as well as those of our partners and customers. In addition, it may take considerable time for us to investigate and evaluate the full impact of incidents, particularly for sophisticated attacks. As a result of these and other factors, we may not be able to provide prompt, full, and reliable information about the incident to our customers, partners, suppliers, regulators, and the public. Breaches of our facilities, network, or data security can disrupt the security of our systems and business applications, impair our ability to provide services to our customers and protect the privacy of their data, result in product development delays, compromise confidential or technical business information, result in theft or misuse of our intellectual property or other assets, subject us to ransomware attacks, require us to allocate more resources to improve technologies or remediate the impacts of attacks, or otherwise adversely affect our business. In addition, actions taken to remediate an incident could result in outages, data losses, and disruptions of our services.

Our internal environment continues to evolve. Often, we are early adopters of new devices and technologies. We embrace new ways of sharing data and communicating internally and with partners and customers using methods such as social networking and other consumer-oriented technologies. Increasing use of AI, including models, algorithms, copilots, and autonomous or semi-autonomous agents, in our internal or third-party systems may create new attack surfaces or methods for adversaries. Our business policies and internal security controls may not keep pace with emerging threats or the evolving regulatory landscape.

Inadequate account security or organizational security practices, including those of companies we have acquired or those of the third parties we utilize, have resulted and may result in unauthorized access to our systems and data, including customer systems and data. For example, passwords may not be rotated and employee access may not be updated or removed on a timely basis. Further, third parties that we utilize may also face the AI-based enhanced cybersecurity risk as described elsewhere in these risk factors. Employees or third parties may intentionally compromise our or our users’ security or systems or reveal confidential information, and laws in certain jurisdictions may compel actions by such parties against our interests and could limit our recourse. Malicious actors have and may continue to exploit the supply chain to compromise our systems by, for example, injecting malware, including through software updates or compromised supplier or open-source software code, accounts, or hardware. Incidents involving the supply chain, including third-party vendors, suppliers, service providers, open-source software, or customer environments, may adversely affect our systems and our products and services, even where our own systems are not directly compromised.

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Security of our products, services, devices, and customers’ data

The security of our products and services is important in our customers’ decisions to purchase or use our products or services across cloud and on-premises environments. Security threats are a significant challenge to companies like us, whose business is providing technology products and services to others. Threats to, or attacks on, our own infrastructure, such as the nation-state attack described in the prior risk factor, have also affected our customers and may do so in the future. The reliability of our cloud-based services and the protection of customer data depend on the security of our infrastructure and the security of third-party infrastructure upon which we rely, which includes hardware, software, and other elements provided by third parties. Adversaries tend to focus their efforts on the most popular operating systems, programs, and services, including many of ours, as well as customers with sensitive data, and we expect that to continue. In addition, adversaries can attack our customers’ on-premises or cloud environments, sometimes exploiting previously unknown (“zero-day”) vulnerabilities. Product vulnerabilities can persist even after we have issued security patches if customers have not installed the most recent updates, or if attackers, potentially with the assistance of artificial intelligence, reconstruct and exploit the vulnerabilities before patching. Attackers may utilize vulnerabilities to install malware to further compromise customers’ systems. Adversaries will continue to attack customers as they embrace digital transformation. Adversaries that acquire user account information can use that information to compromise our users’ accounts, including where accounts share the same attributes such as passwords. Inadequate account security practices may also result in unauthorized access, and user activity may result in ransomware or other malicious software impacting a customer’s use of our products or services. Our products are highly complex and weaknesses may exist in our development processes. For example, code generated by AI could include errors, deficiencies, or vulnerabilities that increase our exposure to cyberattacks. Additionally, open-source software can also contain vulnerabilities that may make our products susceptible to cyberattacks as we increasingly incorporate open-source software into our products. Accordingly, our products have and may continue to contain vulnerabilities or undetected errors.

Our customers operate complex systems with third-party hardware and software from multiple vendors that may include systems acquired over many years. They expect our products and services to support all these systems and products, including those that no longer incorporate the strongest current security advances or standards. As a result, we may not be able to discontinue support of our services for a product, service, standard, or feature solely because a more secure alternative is available. Failure to utilize the most current security advances and standards can increase our customers’ vulnerability to attack. Further, the rapid evolution of AI technologies and use cases may outpace the development, deployment, and effectiveness of security products, controls, and industry standards, particularly in complex customer environments, increasing the risk that security measures will be insufficient to address newly emerging threats. Customers of widely varied sizes and technical sophistication use our technology, and consequently may still have limited capabilities and resources to help them adopt and implement state-of-the-art cybersecurity practices and technologies. In addition, we must account for this wide variation of technical sophistication when defining default settings for our products and services, including security default settings, as these settings may limit or otherwise impact other aspects of operations and some customers may have limited capability to review and reset these defaults.

Cyberattacks could adversely impact our customers even if our production services are not directly compromised. We are committed to notifying our customers whose systems have been impacted as we become aware and have actionable information for customers to help protect themselves. We are also committed to providing guidance and support on detection, tracking, and remediation. We may not be able to detect the existence or extent of these attacks for all of our customers or have information on how to detect or track an attack, especially where an attack involves on-premises software such as Exchange Server where we may have no or limited visibility into our customers’ computing environments.

Any of the foregoing events could result in reputational harm, loss of revenue, increased costs, or otherwise adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Development and deployment of defensive measures

To defend against security threats to our internal infrastructure, our cloud-based services, and our customers’ systems, we must take a complex and multifaceted approach. This includes continuously engineering more secure products and services, and enhancing security, threat detection, and reliability features, including through the deployment of AI-based and automated defenses. We must also escalate and improve our development processes and the deployment of software updates to address security vulnerabilities in our own products as well as those provided by others in a timely manner. In addition, we must develop mitigation technologies that help to secure customers from attacks even

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when software updates are not deployed, and maintain the digital security infrastructure that protects the integrity of our network, products, and services. Further, we must provide security tools such as firewalls, anti-virus software, and advanced security and information about the need to deploy security measures and the impact of doing so.

The cost of these measures to protect products and customer-facing services could reduce our operating margins. If we fail to do these things well, actual or perceived security vulnerabilities in our processes, products, and services, data corruption issues, or reduced performance could harm our reputation and lead customers to exercise contractual or other remedies against us, reduce or delay future purchases of products or subscriptions to services, or to use competing products or services. Customers and third parties granted access to customer systems may fail to update their systems, continue to run software or operating systems we no longer support, may fail to timely install or enable security patches, or may otherwise fail to adopt adequate security practices, including in response to enhanced AI-based threats. Customers may also spend more on protecting their existing computer systems from attack, which could delay adoption of additional products or services. Customers in certain industries such as financial services, health care, and government have enhanced or specialized expectations and requirements to which we must develop and engineer our products and services. Any of these could adversely affect our reputation and results of operations. Actual or perceived vulnerabilities may lead to claims against us. Our license agreements typically contain provisions that eliminate or limit our exposure to liability, but these provisions may not withstand legal challenges. At times, to achieve commercial objectives, we may enter into agreements with larger liability exposure to customers.

Our products operate in conjunction with and are dependent on products and components across a broad ecosystem of third parties. If there is a security vulnerability in one of these components, and if there is a security exploit targeting it, we could experience adverse impacts to our results of operations, reputation, or competitive position.

Disclosure and misuse of personal data could result in liability and harm our reputation. As we continue to grow the number, breadth, and scale of our cloud-based offerings, we store and process increasingly large amounts of personal data of our customers and users. The continued occurrence of high-profile data breaches provides evidence of an external environment increasingly hostile to information security. Our security controls over personal data, our training of employees and third parties on data security, and other practices we follow may not prevent the improper disclosure or misuse of customer or user data we or our vendors store and manage. Relatedly, we may fail to identify or mitigate insider threat activities that could lead to the misuse of our systems or customer and user data. In addition, third parties who have limited access to our customer or user data may use this data in unauthorized ways. Improper disclosure or misuse could harm our reputation, lead to legal exposure to customers or users, or subject us to liability under laws that protect personal data, resulting in increased costs or loss of revenue. Our software products and services also enable our customers and users to store and process personal data on-premises or in a cloud-based environment we host. Government authorities can sometimes require us to produce customer or user data in response to valid legal orders. In the U.S. and elsewhere, we advocate for transparency concerning these requests and appropriate limitations on government authority to compel disclosure. Perceptions that the collection, use, and retention of personal information is not satisfactorily protected could inhibit sales of our products or services and could limit adoption of our cloud-based solutions by consumers, businesses, and government entities. Additional security measures we take to address customer or user concerns, or constraints on our flexibility to determine where and how to operate datacenters in response to customer or user expectations or governmental rules or actions, may increase costs or hinder sales of our products and services.

We may not be able to protect information in our products and services from use by others. LinkedIn and other Microsoft products and services contain valuable information and content protected by contractual restrictions or technical measures. In certain cases, we have made commitments to our members and users to limit access to or use of this information. Limitations on our ability to prevent third parties from scraping or gathering information or content through use of bots or other measures and using it for their own benefit due to, among other things, changes in the law, interpretations of law, or increasing use of agentic AI, could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

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Abuse of our platforms may harm our reputation or user engagement.

Advertising, professional, marketplace, and gaming platform abuses

For platform products and services that provide content or host ads that come from or can be influenced by third parties, our reputation or user engagement may be negatively affected by activity that is hostile or inappropriate. This activity may come from users impersonating other people or organizations, including through the use of AI technologies, dissemination of information that may be viewed as misleading or intended to manipulate the opinions of our users, or the use of our products or services that violates our terms of service or otherwise for objectionable or illegal ends. Preventing or responding to these actions may require us to make substantial investments in people and technology and these investments may not be successful, adversely affecting our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Other digital safety abuses

Our services may be used to find, generate, store, or disseminate harmful or illegal content in violation of our terms or applicable law. We may not proactively discover such content due to scale, the limitations of existing technologies, and conflicting legal frameworks. This content may negatively affect users, our reputation, our brands, or could impact our business in certain markets. Regulatory enforcement is increasingly focused on product design, safety-by-design, and the responsibility of platform providers. At the same time, laws designed to reduce risks to children are driving new obligations for age-assurance systems, age-appropriate design, and parental controls across the online ecosystem, including within app stores and operating systems. In addition, certain AI technologies, including conversational or emotionally engaging AI systems, may present distinct risks for children and adolescents. Failure to comply with these requirements may subject us to enhanced regulatory oversight, civil or criminal liability, fines and penalties, or other reputational damage, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our products and services, how they are used by customers, and how third-party products and services interact with them, may present security, privacy, and execution risks. Our products and services may contain defects in design, manufacture, or operation that make them insecure or ineffective for their intended purposes. For example, customers control our products and services, including our AI products, within their environments, and may deploy them in high-risk scenarios or utilize them inappropriately. Our products may also collect large amounts of data in manners which may not satisfy customers or regulatory requirements. Our customers also operate complex systems with third-party hardware and software from multiple vendors whose products or personnel may take or fail to take actions which impact the reliability or security of our products and services. If our products and services do not work as intended, are utilized in methods not intended, violate the law, or harm individuals or businesses, we may be subject to legal claims or enforcement actions. These risks, if realized, may increase our costs, damage our reputation, or adversely affect our results of operations.

Issues in the development, deployment, and use of AI may result in reputational or competitive harm or liability. We are providing access to AI across our offerings and enabling customers and partners to build AI-based solutions using our platforms. These capabilities may be developed by Microsoft or third parties and are becoming an increasing part of our business. The increasing scale and adoption of AI amplifies challenges that may affect its development, deployment, and use, which could give rise to reputational, competitive, or legal harm. Our AI models and the methodologies used to train them may be flawed. Datasets may be overbroad, insufficient, or contain biased or inaccurate information. Content generated by AI systems may be offensive, illegal, inaccurate, or otherwise harmful. Ineffective or inadequate AI development or deployment practices by Microsoft or others could result in incidents that impair the acceptance of AI solutions, cause harm to individuals, customers, or society, or result in our products and services not working as intended. Human review of certain inputs and outputs or other forms of human oversight may be required, including for agentic AI systems that can take actions autonomously. Companion or highly-personalized AI systems may result in over-reliance or dependence by users that is harmful. Our implementation of AI systems could result in legal liability, regulatory action, litigation, brand, reputational, or competitive harm, or other adverse impacts. These risks may stem from issues related to AI model and system capabilities, intellectual property, data privacy, product liability, and other claims associated with AI training, outputs, and system behavior. They are further compounded by the evolving regulatory landscape, with new laws emerging globally and increased scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers. Certain AI technologies and use cases present ethical issues or may have broad or uneven impacts on society or vulnerable groups within society. There is also rising divergence globally in how to address these issues and impacts, with the result that we will need to navigate a web of different tensions across geographies. We have experienced, and expect to continue to experience, instances in which the AI solutions we enable or offer produce unintended consequences, are used or customized in unforeseen ways by customers or partners, or operate in a

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manner inconsistent with our responsible AI policies and practices. These outcomes may give rise to public controversy, societal concerns, or regulatory actions relating to human rights, privacy, employment, or other social, economic, or political issues, and could adversely affect our reputation, competitive position, business, financial condition, and results of operations.

OPERATIONAL RISKS

We may be unable to develop and expand adequate infrastructure. Our increasing user traffic, our growth in services, and the complexity of our products and services demand more infrastructure capacity and computing power. We have spent and will continue to spend substantial amounts to build, purchase, or lease datacenters and equipment and to upgrade our technology and network infrastructure. Our infrastructure capacity depends on the availability of permitted and buildable land, predictable and affordable energy, networking supplies, and servers, including graphics processing units and other components. These demands continue to increase as we introduce new products and services and support the growth and the augmentation of existing services, and scale further the incorporation of AI features and/or functionality. We are rapidly growing our business of providing a platform and back-end hosting for services provided by third parties to their end users. In addition, infrastructure in certain geographies carries higher safety and reliability risks. Maintaining, securing, and expanding our infrastructure globally is expensive and complex.

The availability, reliability, and cost of electrical power are critical to the operation and expansion of our datacenters. In many regions, electricity generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure is experiencing increasing demand and capacity constraints. Limitations in power availability, delays in obtaining power connections, outages, shortages, increased energy costs, or requirements imposed by utilities, regulators, or other market participants could restrict our ability to develop or expand datacenter capacity. In addition, alternative energy sources and other emerging solutions may not be available in sufficient quantities, may not timely scale to meet our requirements, or may be available only at higher costs. If we are unable to secure adequate power resources on commercially reasonable terms, our ability to support customer demand and execute our growth strategy could be adversely affected.

Our ability to develop additional capacity is also subject to land availability, zoning restrictions, environmental reviews, permitting requirements, and other regulatory approvals. Changes in governmental policies, permitting processes, environmental regulations, sustainability requirements, building standards, energy regulations, or other factors beyond our control may delay projects, restrict development opportunities, impose additional compliance obligations, or increase costs. We also face community opposition, state and local moratoriums, and hyper-local dissent, as well as increasingly coordinated opposition to infrastructure development across jurisdictions, including through the involvement or influence of elected officials, policymakers, and advocacy groups. Our failure to navigate successfully any of these challenges may delay projects, restrict development opportunities, impose additional compliance obligations, or increase costs.

The construction and operation of datacenters also requires significant numbers of skilled technical, engineering, construction, and operational personnel. Labor shortages, competition for talent, wage inflation, labor disputes, immigration restrictions, or shortages of specialized contractors could increase operating and construction costs, extend project timelines, and adversely affect our ability to deploy infrastructure at the pace required to meet demand.

We may experience supply problems. There are limited suppliers for certain critical device and datacenter components, and those items are in short supply. We continue to identify and evaluate opportunities to expand our datacenter locations and increase our server capacity to meet the evolving needs of our customers, particularly given the growing demand for AI products and services. Our competitors are also scaling their infrastructure and use some of the same suppliers and materials for hardware components as we do, which impacts price and availability. We depend on the timely availability of critical hardware, equipment, and components used to construct and operate datacenters and related infrastructure. We have experienced and may continue to experience supply constraints, including shortages of semiconductors, networking equipment, power systems, cooling equipment, and other key components. Expanding manufacturing or supply capacity for certain components may require significant investments and multi-year lead times. As components are delayed or become unavailable or more expensive, whether because of supplier capacity constraint, industry shortages, legal or regulatory changes that restrict supply sources, geopolitical tensions, trade restrictions, tariffs, transportation disruptions, supplier financial distress, natural disasters, public health events, instability in regions important to our or our suppliers’ supply chains, or other reasons, we may not obtain timely replacement supplies, or may be able to obtain supplies only by entering into long-term purchase commitments, price commitments, paying prices above prevailing market rates, or other arrangements on terms that are less favorable than prevailing market terms. Any delay or inability to obtain necessary equipment, hardware, or components on acceptable terms and timelines could delay infrastructure deployments, result in reduced sales, higher costs, or

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inadequate datacenter capacity to support the delivery and continued development of our products and services. Component shortages, excess or obsolete inventory, or price reductions resulting in inventory adjustments have and may increase our cost of revenue.

In addition to infrastructure, other products such as XBOX consoles, Surface devices, and other hardware are similarly subject to supply chain challenges and disruptions, resulting in shortages which could adversely affect our business, operations, financial condition, and results of operations.

We may experience outages, disruptions, or capacity constraints if we fail to maintain and operate adequate infrastructure or secure the resources necessary to support it. Maintaining, securing, and operating our infrastructure requires that we maintain an Internet connectivity infrastructure and storage and compute capacity that is robust, resilient, and reliable within competitive, economic, and regulatory constraints that continue to evolve. The cost or availability of critical resources necessary to support our infrastructure, including power, networking supplies, servers, graphics processing units, and other components, could be adversely affected by a variety of factors, including supply chain and energy issues, evolving environmental or other regulations, and geopolitical disruptions.

In addition to datacenters we own or operate, we rely on third-party providers, including colocation facilities, leased datacenters, and cloud infrastructure providers, to support portions of our operations. If any of these providers fail to meet our requirements, or experience service interruptions, operational failures, capacity constraints, physical damage, cybersecurity incidents, or other disruptions, our ability to provide services, maintain system performance, or meet customer expectations could be negatively impacted.

Inefficiencies or operational failures, including temporary or permanent loss of customer data, outages, insufficient Internet connectivity, insufficient or unavailable power or water supply, inefficient operation of our of our cloud-based and AI products and services on our infrastructure, or inadequate storage and compute capacity could diminish the actual or perceived quality of our products, services, and user experience, resulting in contractual liability, claims by customers and other third parties, regulatory actions, damage to our reputation, and loss of current and potential users, subscribers, and advertisers, each of which could adversely affect our business, operations, financial condition, and results of operations.

We may experience other quality problems. Our AI and other software products and services also have and may in the future experience quality or reliability problems. The processes we use to develop our software are imperfect. Like all software, our software contains bugs and other defects that interfere with their intended operation. Our customers rely on us for critical business functions and multiple workloads. Many of our products and services are interdependent on one another. Our products and services may be impacted by interaction with third-party products and services. Our customers may also utilize their own or third-party products and services whose reliability is dependent on interaction with our products and services. Each of these circumstances potentially magnifies the impact of quality or reliability issues. Weaknesses in our processes could result in defects we do not detect and fix in pre-release testing, which could cause reduced sales, damage to our reputation, repair or remediation costs, delays in the release of new products or versions, or legal liability, any of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Although our license agreements typically contain provisions that eliminate or limit our exposure to liability, these provisions may not withstand legal challenge.

Our datacenters and our hardware products such as XBOX consoles, Surface devices, and other devices we design and market are highly complex. Failure to prevent, detect, or address defects in design, manufacture, or associated software could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

LEGAL, REGULATORY, AND LITIGATION RISKS

We are subject to a variety of new, existing, and evolving legal and regulatory requirements that could adversely affect our results of operations. We are subject to a wide range of laws, regulations, and legal requirements in the U.S. and globally, including those that may apply to our products and online services offerings, and those that impose requirements related to user privacy, cybersecurity, telecommunications, data storage and protection, digital accessibility, advertising, and online safety. Laws in several jurisdictions, including EU Member State laws under the European Electronic Communications Code, increasingly define certain of our services as regulated services. This trend may continue with our offerings becoming subject to additional data protection, security, digital safety, law enforcement surveillance, and other obligations. Regulators and private litigants may assert that our collection, use, and management of customer data and other information is inconsistent with their laws and regulations, including laws that apply to the tracking of users via technology such as cookies. In addition, laws requiring us to

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retrieve and produce customer data in response to compulsory legal demands from law enforcement and governmental authorities are evolving and the requests we are experiencing are increasing in volume and complexity.

New, existing, and evolving laws and regulations, or interpretations or applications of existing laws and regulations in a manner inconsistent with our interpretations of such laws and regulations or our practices, may result in modification of our products and services, altered business models and operations, increased costs, reputational damage, and civil or criminal liability. Examples include laws and regulations regarding:

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Competition laws and new market regulation: Government agencies closely scrutinize us under U.S. and foreign competition laws. Governments are actively enforcing competition laws and regulations and enacting new regulations to intervene in digital markets, and this includes markets such as the EU, the United Kingdom, the U.S., and China. Some jurisdictions also allow competitors or consumers to assert claims of anti-competitive conduct. U.S. and foreign antitrust authorities have previously brought enforcement actions and continue to scrutinize our business. Competition law enforcement actions and court decisions along with new market regulations may result in fines or hinder our ability to provide the benefits of our software to consumers and businesses, reducing the attractiveness of our products and the revenue that comes from them. New competition law actions or obligations under market regulation schemes could be initiated, potentially using previous actions as precedent.

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AI: Legislative and regulatory action is evolving with respect to AI, which could increase costs or restrict opportunity. For example, the EU’s AI Act may increase costs or impact the provision or operation of our AI models and services in the European market. In addition, governments may impose restrictions on the development, deployment, availability, or cross-border access to advanced AI models based on safety, cybersecurity, or national security or may apply laws to AI models in ways we cannot anticipate. AI regulatory areas include model and system development and deployment, frontier model safety, transparency, content provenance, digital replicas, and AI companions.

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Anti-corruption: The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) and other anti-corruption laws and regulations (“Anti-Corruption Laws”) prohibit corrupt payments by our employees, vendors, or agents, and the accounting provisions of the FCPA require us to maintain accurate books and records and adequate internal controls. From time to time, we receive inquiries from authorities in the U.S. and elsewhere which may be based on reports from employees and others about our business activities and our compliance with Anti-Corruption Laws. Periodically, we receive such reports directly and investigate them and also cooperate with investigations by U.S. and foreign law enforcement authorities.

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Trade: Increasing trade laws, policies, sanctions, and other regulatory requirements also affect our operations in and outside the U.S. relating to trade and investment. Economic sanctions in the U.S., the EU, and other countries could prohibit business with restricted entities or countries. U.S. export controls restrict Microsoft from offering many of its products and services to, or making investments in, certain entities in specified countries. U.S. import controls restrict us from integrating certain information and communication technologies into our supply chain and allow for government review of transactions involving information and communications technology from countries determined to be foreign adversaries. Supply chain regulations may impact the availability of goods or result in additional regulatory scrutiny. Restrictions on data flows and outbound investment and customer sensitivities may limit our ability to leverage parts of our global engineering footprint to provide services in certain jurisdictions. Increased geopolitical instabilities and changing U.S. Administration priorities create an unpredictable trade landscape. U.S. tariffs, shifting AI export controls policies, and disagreements among governments on sanctions policies toward third countries, has and may continue to increase operational costs, create uncertainty in the continuity of our products, and accelerate sovereignty initiatives among international partners and customers. The volatility of U.S. tariffs has triggered economic uncertainty and could impact cloud and devices supply chain cost competitiveness. The potential replacement of the rescinded AI Diffusion Rule, expanded export license conditions, and other potential AI-related rulemakings could adversely affect Microsoft’s business, strategy, and operations. Periods of intense diplomatic or armed conflict, such as the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East could continue to result in (1) new and rapidly evolving sanctions and trade restrictions, which may impair trade with sanctioned individuals and countries, and (2) negative impacts to regional trade ecosystems among our customers, partners, and us.

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Cybersecurity: Legislative and regulatory actions related to cybersecurity may increase the costs associated with developing, implementing, or securing our products and services. The legal and regulatory environment in this area is complex and continues to evolve across multiple jurisdictions. As a result, there is considerable uncertainty regarding both current and future compliance obligations. This uncertainty increases the risk that we may incur additional operational costs, face regulatory enforcement actions, or encounter challenges in the development and deployment of our products.

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Handling of personal data: Legal requirements relating to the collection, storage, handling, and transfer of personal data globally continue to evolve. The growth of our Internet- and cloud-based services internationally relies on the movement of data across national boundaries. Data protection authorities and governments in the EU and other markets have and may again restrict and/or block the use of services that involve the transfer of data across borders. New and evolving rules and restrictions on the flow of data across borders could increase the cost and complexity of delivering our products and services. In addition, the EU General Data Protection Regulation and other similar regulations impose a range of compliance obligations regarding the handling of personal data. New requirements related to the use of data, including the Data Act, add additional rules and restrictions on the use of data in our products and services.

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Environmental, Social, and Governance: Laws, regulations, and policies relating to environmental, social, and governance matters are being developed and formalized in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere, which may include greenhouse gas emissions and energy usage caps, permitting, reporting, procurement, operational, and infrastructure-siting requirements as well as specific, target-driven environmental, social, and governance frameworks and disclosure requirements. These laws, regulations, and policies may require significant investments or operational changes and may result in new or unexpected costs. In addition, in 2020 we announced goals to become carbon negative, water positive, and zero waste by 2030. AI development and deployment has and will likely continue to raise energy use and emissions, making it harder to meet these goals. Any failure or perceived failure to meet our sustainability goals, or to meet various sustainability regulatory requirements, could result in claims and lawsuits, regulatory actions, penalties, or damage to our reputation, each of which could adversely affect our business, operations, financial condition, and results of operations.

How these laws and regulations apply to our business is often unclear, subject to change, and sometimes may conflict or be inconsistent from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In addition, governments’ approach to enforcement, and our products and services, are continuing to evolve. Compliance with existing, expanding, or new laws and regulations may involve significant costs and operational efforts, or require changes in products or business practices that could adversely affect our results of operations. Noncompliance could result in the imposition of penalties, criminal sanctions, or orders to cease the alleged noncompliant activity. If our products do not meet customer expectations or legal requirements, we could face regulatory or legal actions, and our business, operations, financial condition, and results of operations could be adversely affected.

We have claims and lawsuits against us that may result in adverse outcomes. We are subject to a variety of claims and lawsuits. These claims may arise from a wide variety of business practices and initiatives, including major new product releases, AI products and services, significant business transactions, warranty or product claims, employment practices, and regulation. As we continue to expand our business and offerings, we may experience new and novel legal claims. Adverse outcomes in some or all of these claims may result in significant monetary damages or injunctive relief that could adversely affect our ability to conduct our business. Litigation and other claims are subject to inherent uncertainties and management’s view of these matters may change in the future. An adverse impact to our financial condition and results of operations could occur for the period in which the effect of an unfavorable outcome becomes probable and reasonably estimable.

Our business with government customers may present additional uncertainties. We derive substantial revenue from government contracts. Government contracts and regulatory requirements can present risks and challenges not present in private commercial agreements. For instance, we are subject to government audits and investigations relating to these contracts, and we are required to provide assurance and attestations about our products and processes. If we do not satisfy contractual or regulatory requirements, we could be suspended or debarred as a governmental contractor, we could incur civil and criminal fines and penalties, and under certain circumstances contracts may be rescinded. Some agreements may allow a government to terminate without cause and provide for higher liability limits for certain losses. Some contracts may be subject to periodic funding approval, reductions, cancellations, or delays which could adversely impact public-sector demand for our products and services. These events could negatively impact our financial condition, results of operations, and reputation.

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We may have additional tax liabilities. We are subject to income taxes in the U.S. and many foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in determining our worldwide provision for income taxes. In the course of our business, there are many transactions and calculations where the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. We may recognize additional tax expense and be subject to additional tax liabilities due to changes in tax laws, regulations, and administrative practices and principles, including changes to the global tax framework, in various jurisdictions. In recent years, multiple domestic and international tax proposals were proposed to impose greater tax burdens on large multinational enterprises. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development continues to advance proposals or guidance in international taxation, including global minimum tax.

We are regularly under audit by tax authorities in different jurisdictions. Although we believe that our provision for income taxes and our tax estimates are reasonable, tax authorities may disagree with certain positions we have taken. In addition, economic and political pressures to increase tax revenue in various jurisdictions may make resolving tax disputes favorably more difficult. We are currently under IRS audit for prior tax years and have received Notices of Proposed Adjustment (“NOPAs”) from the IRS for the tax years 2004 to 2013. The primary issues in the NOPAs relate to intercompany transfer pricing. In the NOPAs, the IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $28.9 billion plus penalties and interest. The final resolution of the proposed adjustments, and other audits or litigation, may differ from the amounts recorded in our consolidated financial statements and adversely affect our results of operations in the period or periods in which that determination is made.

We earn a significant amount of our operating income outside the U.S. A change in the mix of earnings and losses in countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in our business or structure, or the expiration of or disputes about certain tax agreements in a particular country may result in higher effective tax rates for the company. In addition, changes in U.S. federal and state or international tax laws applicable to corporate multinationals, other global fundamental law changes currently being considered by many countries, including in the U.S., and changes in taxing jurisdictions’ administrative interpretations, decisions, policies, and positions could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RISKS

We face risks related to the protection and utilization of our intellectual property that may result in our business and operating results being harmed. Protecting our intellectual property rights and combating unlicensed copying and use of our software, source code, trade secrets, and other intellectual property on a global basis is difficult. Similarly, the absence of harmonized patent laws makes it more difficult to ensure consistent respect for patent rights.

Source code, the detailed program commands for our software programs, is critical to our business. Unauthorized access to or disclosure of source code or other intellectual property may negatively impact future trade secret protection for that intellectual property. It may then become easier for third parties to compete with our products by copying functionality, which could adversely affect our results of operations. Unauthorized access to or disclosure of source code or other intellectual property also increases the security risks described elsewhere in these risk factors.

Third parties may claim that we infringe their intellectual property. From time to time, others claim we infringe their intellectual property rights, including current copyright infringement and other claims arising from AI training, inference, and output. To resolve these claims, we may enter into royalty-bearing data access or licensing agreements on terms that are less favorable than currently available, stop selling or redesign affected products or services, or pay damages to satisfy indemnification commitments with our customers. Adverse outcomes could also include monetary damages or injunctive relief that may limit or prevent importing, marketing, and selling our products or services that have infringing technologies. We have paid significant amounts to settle claims related to the use of technology and intellectual property rights and to procure intellectual property rights as part of our strategy to manage this risk, and may continue to do so, which could adversely affect our results of operations.

GENERAL RISKS

If our reputation or our brands are damaged, our business and results of operations may be harmed. Our reputation and brands are globally recognized and are important to our business. Our reputation and brands affect our ability to attract and retain consumer, business, and public-sector customers. There are numerous ways our reputation or brands could be damaged. These include product safety, quality, or accessibility issues, our environmental impact and sustainability, supply chain practices, or human rights record. We may experience backlash from customers, government entities, advocacy groups, employees, and other stakeholders that disagree with our product offering

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decisions, public policy positions, or corporate philanthropic initiatives. Damage to our reputation or our brands may occur from, among other things:

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The introduction of new features, products, services, or terms of service that customers, users, or partners do not like.

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Public scrutiny of our decisions regarding user privacy, data practices, content, or development and deployment of AI.

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Data security breaches, cybersecurity incidents, responsible AI failures, compliance failures, or actions of partners or individual employees.

Social media may increase the likelihood, speed, and magnitude of negative brand events. If our brands or reputation are damaged, it could adversely affect our business, results of operations, or ability to attract the most highly qualified employees.

Adverse economic or market conditions could harm our business. Worsening economic conditions, including inflation, recession, pandemic, or other changes in economic conditions, periods of economic uncertainty, evolution of customer demand, technology investment cycles, interest rates, foreign exchange rates, or the timing and mix of customer spending, may cause lower or delayed IT spending and adversely affect our results of operations. If demand for computing power, PCs, servers, and other computing devices declines, or consumer or business spending for those products declines, our results of operations could be adversely affected.

Our product distribution system relies on an extensive partner and retail network. OEMs building devices that run our software have also been a significant means of distribution. The impact of economic conditions on our partners, such as the bankruptcy of a major distributor, OEM, or retailer, could cause sales channel disruption.

Challenging economic conditions also may impair the ability of our customers to pay for products and services they have purchased. As a result, allowances for doubtful accounts and write-offs of accounts receivable may increase.

We maintain an investment portfolio of various holdings, types, and maturities. These investments are subject to general credit, liquidity, market, and interest rate risks, which may be exacerbated by market downturns or events that affect global financial markets. A significant part of our investment portfolio consists of U.S. government securities. If global financial markets decline for long periods, or if there is a downgrade of the U.S. government credit rating due to an actual or threatened default on government debt, our investment portfolio could be adversely affected and we could determine that more of our investments have experienced a decline in fair value, requiring impairment charges that could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Catastrophic events or geopolitical conditions could disrupt our business. A disruption or failure of our systems, operations, or supply chain because of a major earthquake, weather event, cyberattack, terrorist attack, pandemic, or other catastrophic event could cause delays in completing sales, providing services, or performing other critical functions. As an example, our corporate headquarters, a significant portion of our research and development activities, and certain other essential business operations are in the Seattle, Washington area, and we have other business operations in the Silicon Valley area of California, both of which are seismically active regions. A catastrophic event that results in the destruction or disruption of any of our critical business or systems, or the infrastructure or systems they rely on, such as power grids, could harm our ability to conduct normal business operations or adversely affect our results of operations. Providing our customers with more services and solutions in the cloud puts a premium on the resilience of our systems and strength of our business continuity management plans and magnifies the potential negative consequences of prolonged service outages.

Abrupt political change, terrorist activity, and armed conflict, such as the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, pose economic and other risks, which may negatively impact our ability to sell to and collect from customers, increase our operating costs, or otherwise disrupt our operations in markets both directly and indirectly impacted by such events. These conditions also may add uncertainty to the timing and budget for technology investment decisions by our customers and may cause supply chain disruptions. Geopolitical change may result in changing regulatory systems and requirements and market interventions that could impact our operating strategies, access to national, regional, and global markets, hiring, and profitability. Geopolitical instability may lead to sanctions and impact our ability to do business in some markets or with some public-sector customers. Any of these changes could adversely affect our results of operations. Changes in geopolitical conditions also increase the security risks described elsewhere in these risk factors.

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The occurrence of regional epidemics or a global pandemic could adversely affect our business, operations, financial condition, and results of operations. The extent to which global pandemics impact our business going forward will depend on factors such as the duration and scope of the pandemic; governmental, business, and individuals' actions in response to the pandemic; and the impact on economic activity, including the possibility of recession or financial market instability. Measures to contain a global pandemic may intensify other risks described in these Risk Factors.

The long-term effects of climate change on the global economy and the IT industry are unclear. Environmental regulations or changes in the supply, demand, or available sources of energy or other resources may affect the availability or cost of goods and services, including natural resources, necessary to run our business. Changes in climate where we operate may increase the costs of powering and cooling computer hardware we use to develop software and provide cloud-based services.

Our global business exposes us to operational and economic risks. Our customers, employees, and infrastructure are located throughout the world and a significant part of our revenue comes from international sales. The global nature of our business creates operational, economic, and geopolitical risks. Global, regional, and local economic developments, monetary policy, geopolitical tension, restrictions on international trade, such as tariffs and other controls on imports or exports, inflation, and recession, as well as political and military disputes, could adversely affect our results of operations. Non-compliance with sanctions as well as general ecosystem disruptions could result in reputational harm, operational delays, monetary fines, loss of revenue, increased costs, loss of export privileges, or criminal sanctions, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

In addition, our international growth strategy includes certain markets, the developing nature of which presents several risks, including deterioration of social, political, labor, or economic conditions in a country or region, and difficulties in staffing and managing foreign operations. Emerging nationalist and protectionist trends and concerns about human rights, the environment, and political expression in specific countries may significantly alter the trade and commercial environments. Changes to trade policy or agreements as a result of populism, protectionism, or economic nationalism may result in higher tariffs, local sourcing initiatives, and non-local sourcing restrictions, disagreements among governments on export controls and sanctions toward third countries, investment restrictions, or other developments that make it more difficult to operate and sell our products in foreign countries. Disruptions of these kinds in developed or emerging markets could negatively impact demand for our products and services, impair our ability to operate in certain regions, or increase operating costs. Although we hedge a portion of our international currency exposure, significant fluctuations in foreign exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and foreign currencies could adversely affect our results of operations.

Our business depends on our ability to attract and retain talented employees. Our business is based on successfully attracting, training, and retaining talented employees representing diverse backgrounds, experiences, and skill sets. The market for highly skilled workers and leaders in our industry is extremely competitive. Maintaining our brand and reputation, as well as an inclusive work environment that enables all our employees to thrive, are important to our ability to recruit and retain employees. We are also limited in our ability to recruit internationally by restrictive domestic immigration laws. Restraints on the flow of technical and professional talent, including those derived from changes to U.S. immigration policies or laws, may inhibit our ability to adequately staff our research and development efforts. If we are less successful in our recruiting efforts, or if we cannot retain highly skilled workers and key leaders, our ability to develop and deliver successful products and services could be adversely affected. Effective succession planning is also important to our long-term success. Failure to ensure effective transfer of knowledge and smooth transitions involving key employees could hinder our strategic planning and execution. How employment-related laws are interpreted and applied to our workforce practices may result in increased operating costs and less flexibility in how we meet our workforce needs. Our global workforce is predominantly non-unionized, although we do have some employees in the U.S. and internationally who are represented by unions or works councils. In the U.S., there has been a general increase in workers exercising their right to form or join a union. The unionization of significant employee populations could result in higher costs and other operational changes necessary to respond to changing conditions and to establish new relationships with worker representatives.

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