Item 1. Business

The gamer remains at the heart of the XBOX ecosystem. We are identifying new opportunities to attract gamers across a variety of different end points through our first- and third-party content and business diversification across subscriptions, ads, and digital stores. We’ve seen new devices from third-party manufacturers along with key PC and mobile end points that help us empower gamers to play in a way that is most convenient to them. We are focused on growing the platform and expanding to new ecosystems to engage as many gamers as possible.

XBOX enables people to connect and share online gaming experiences that are accessible on XBOX consoles, Windows-enabled devices, and other devices. XBOX is designed to benefit users by providing access to a network of certified applications and services and to benefit our developer and partner ecosystems by providing access to a large customer base. XBOX revenue is mainly affected by subscriptions and sales of first- and third-party content, as well as advertising. Growth of our XBOX business is determined by the overall active user base through XBOX enabled content, availability of games, providing exclusive game content that gamers seek, the computational power and reliability of the devices used to access our content and services, and the ability to create new experiences.

Search Advertising

Our Search advertising business is designed to deliver relevant search, native, and display advertising to a global audience. Microsoft Copilot is a digital companion designed to inform, entertain, and inspire. Our Microsoft Edge browser and Bing search engine with Copilot are key tools to enable user acquisition and engagement, while our technology platform enables accelerated delivery of digital advertising solutions. In addition to first-party tools, we have several partnerships with companies through which we provide and monetize search offerings. Growth depends on our ability to attract new users, understand intent, and match intent with relevant content on advertising offerings.

Competition

Windows faces competition from various software products and from alternative platforms and devices. We believe Windows competes effectively by giving customers choice, value, flexibility, security, an easy-to-use interface, and compatibility with a broad range of hardware and software applications, including those that enable productivity.

Devices face competition from various computer, tablet, and hardware manufacturers who offer a unique combination of high-quality industrial design and innovative technologies across various price points. Many of these manufacturers are also current or potential partners and customers, including our Windows OEMs.

XBOX and our cloud gaming services face competition from various online gaming ecosystems and game streaming services. Our gaming platform competes with other console platforms. We believe our gaming platform is effectively positioned against, and uniquely differentiated from, competitive products and services based on significant innovation in hardware architecture, user interface, developer tools, online gaming and entertainment services, and continued strong content from our own first-party game franchises as well as other digital content offerings.

Our Search advertising business competes with search engines, and a wide array of websites, social platforms, and portals that provide content and online offerings to end users.

HUMAN CAPITAL RESOURCES

As of June 30, 2026, we employed approximately 223,000 people on a full-time basis, 121,000 in the U.S. and 102,000 internationally. Of the total employees, 89,000 were in operations, including product support and consulting services, datacenter operations, and manufacturing and distribution; 77,000 were in product research and development; 43,000 were in sales and marketing; and 14,000 were in general and administration. Certain employees are subject to collective bargaining agreements.

We design our programs to attract, reward, and retain top talent while fostering continuous employee development and reinforcing our organizational culture and values. Our total compensation offering is both highly differentiated and competitive within the market, and we also monitor pay equity across multiple dimensions. We have invested significantly in employee wellbeing and offer a differentiated benefits package which includes many physical, emotional, and financial wellness programs. We also provide access to continuous learning through a wide range of internal and external content, supporting professional growth across roles and disciplines. Through our employee listening systems, we gather direct feedback from our workforce, enabling us to adapt our programs and address employee needs globally with real-time insights. Additionally, our culture prioritizes the security of both our customers and Microsoft, embedding this responsibility across all teams and functions.

PART I

Item 1

OPERATIONS

We have a global operations service center covering the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East that supports our business operations, including customer contract and order processing, billing, credit and collections, customer lifecycle AI and cloud operations, and vendor management and logistics.

In addition to our operations center, we also operate datacenters throughout each of these regions. We continue to align our datacenter locations and server capacity to meet the evolving needs of our customers, particularly given the growing demand for AI services. Our datacenters depend on the availability of permitted and buildable land, predictable energy, networking supplies, and servers, including graphics processing units and other components.

We engage third-party manufacturers to produce our devices and have implemented measures to enhance supply chain efficiency and resilience, including the ability to relocate production geographically.

There are few qualified suppliers for certain components of our servers and devices. Extended or unforeseen disruptions, or limited availability of components from these suppliers could impact our ability to operate our datacenters and manufacture devices on time to meet consumer demand.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Product and Service Development

Our success is based on our ability to create new and compelling products, services, and experiences for our users, initiate and embrace disruptive technology trends, enter new geographic and product markets, and drive broad adoption of our products and services. We make significant investments in research and development for new and existing products, services, and technologies, including tools and platforms spanning digital work and life experiences, cloud computing, AI, devices, security, and operating systems.

We develop most of our products and services internally which allows us to maintain competitive advantages that come from product differentiation and closer technical control over our products and services. It also gives us the freedom to decide which modifications and enhancements are most important and when they should be implemented. We strive to obtain information as early as possible about changing usage patterns and hardware advances that may affect software and hardware design. Before releasing new software platforms, and as we make significant modifications to existing platforms, we provide application vendors with a range of resources and guidelines for development, training, and testing.

We plan to continue to make significant investments in a broad range of product research and development activities, including AI-based products and services. We will coordinate our research and development across operating segments and leverage the results across the company, as appropriate. This includes continuing to support fundamental research, which provides us with a unique perspective on future trends and contributes to our innovation.

Intellectual Property

We protect our intellectual property investments in a variety of ways. We work actively in the U.S. and internationally to ensure the enforcement of copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, and other protections that apply to our software and hardware products, services, business plans, and branding. While we employ much of our internally-developed intellectual property in our products and services, we also engage in outbound licensing of specific patented technologies that are incorporated into licensees’ products. From time to time, we enter into broader cross-license agreements with other technology companies covering entire groups of patents. We may also purchase or license technology that we incorporate into our products and services. At times, we make select intellectual property broadly available at no or low cost to achieve a strategic objective, such as promoting industry standards, advancing interoperability, supporting societal and/or environmental efforts, or attracting and enabling our external development community. Our engagement with open-source software also causes us to license our intellectual property rights broadly in certain situations.

While it may be necessary in the future to seek or renew licenses relating to various aspects of our products and services, we believe, based upon past experience and industry practice, such licenses generally can be obtained on commercially reasonable terms. We believe our continuing research and product development are not materially dependent on any single license or other agreement with a third-party relating to the development of our products.

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Item 1

DISTRIBUTION, SALES, AND MARKETING

Distribution occurs through a combination of direct and indirect channels. Direct sales activities serve customers ranging from large multinational enterprises and public sector organizations to small and medium-sized businesses. Indirect sales activities serve customers through a broad network of partners that support the sale, deployment, and management of Microsoft products and services worldwide.

The indirect channel extends the reach of commercial offerings and supports customers across industries, geographies, and organization sizes. Sales and distribution models continue to evolve to support cloud-based, subscription-based, and consumption-based offerings while maintaining multiple options through which customers may acquire and manage our products and services.

OEMs license and preinstall certain Microsoft software on devices that are sold to end customers. In addition, certain products and services are available through online purchasing channels and digital marketplaces.

LICENSING OPTIONS

We offer a range of volume purchasing programs that enable organizations of varying sizes to acquire software, cloud services, and related support benefits through direct and partner-assisted purchasing arrangements. These programs provide customers with flexible purchasing, deployment, and management options and are tailored to large enterprises, mid-sized organizations, small businesses, educational institutions, and government entities.

GOVERNMENT REGULATION

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, services, and infrastructure, and those that impose requirements related to user privacy, telecommunications, data storage and protection, advertising, and online content. These requirements are continually evolving, and they can be unclear and vary significantly across jurisdictions. We have implemented comprehensive compliance programs across our operations to adapt to these changes and to maintain customer and regulator confidence. We monitor regulatory developments around the world and implement policies, controls, and technical safeguards so that our operations, products, and services meet applicable legal standards. Our business teams, with legal support, manage the compliance programs and prepare external regulatory and commercial reporting, and our internal audit teams conduct reviews of the programs and processes. While we have a unified approach to regulatory compliance, some of the programs and processes are tailored to meet specific regulatory obligations, such as with the creation of independent compliance functions required by the European Union (“EU”) Digital Markets Act and the EU Digital Services Act, which oversee, monitor, and assess the company’s compliance with these acts.

For a description of the risks we face related to regulatory matters, refer to Risk Factors (Part I, Item 1A of this Form 10-K).

PART I

Item 1

INFORMATION ABOUT OUR EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

Our executive officers as of July 29, 2026 were as follows:

Name		Age				Position with the Company
Satya Nadella			58			Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Judson B. Althoff			53			Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft Commercial Business
Amy L. Coleman			54			Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer
Amy E. Hood			54			Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Takeshi Numoto			55			Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer
Bradford L. Smith			67			Vice Chair and President

Mr. Nadella was appointed Chairman of the Board in June 2021 and Chief Executive Officer in February 2014. He served as Executive Vice President, Cloud and Enterprise from July 2013 until that time. From 2011 to 2013, Mr. Nadella served as President, Server and Tools. From 2009 to 2011, he was Senior Vice President, Online Services Division. From 2008 to 2009, he was Senior Vice President, Search, Portal, and Advertising. Since joining Microsoft in 1992, Mr. Nadella’s roles also included Vice President of the Business Division.

Mr. Althoff was appointed Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft Commercial Business in October 2025. He previously served as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer since July 2021. He served as Executive Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Business from July 2017 until July 2021. Prior to that, Mr. Althoff served as the President of Microsoft North America. Mr. Althoff joined Microsoft in March 2013 as President of Microsoft North America. Mr. Althoff also serves on the Board of Directors of Ecolab Inc. and General Electric Company, operating as GE Aerospace.

Ms. Coleman was appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer in March 2025. She previously served as Corporate Vice President, Human Resources and Corporation Functions since January 2021. Prior to that, Ms. Coleman served as Vice President Human Resources and Corporate Functions since September 2020. Since joining Microsoft in 2009, Ms. Coleman has held various positions of increasing authority.

Ms. Hood was appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in July 2013, subsequent to her appointment as Chief Financial Officer in May 2013. From 2010 to 2013, Ms. Hood was Chief Financial Officer of the Microsoft Business Division. Since joining Microsoft in 2002, Ms. Hood has also held finance-related positions in the Server and Tools Business and the corporate finance organization.

Mr. Numoto was appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer in October 2023. He served as Executive Vice President and Commercial Chief Marketing Officer from March 2020. Mr. Numoto served as a Corporate Vice President, Cloud Marketing from January 2012. Prior to that, Mr. Numoto served as a Corporate Vice President for Office 365 Marketing from 2004, where he led the transformation from traditional on-premises packaged software to the introduction of Office 365. Since joining Microsoft in 1997, Mr. Numoto has held multiple roles in Windows Program Management and Office Marketing.

Mr. Smith was appointed Vice Chair and President in September 2021. Prior to that, he served as President and Chief Legal Officer since September 2015. He served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary from 2011 to 2015, and served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary from 2001 to 2011. Mr. Smith was also named Chief Compliance Officer in 2002. Since joining Microsoft in 1993, he was Deputy General Counsel for Worldwide Sales and previously was responsible for managing the European Law and Corporate Affairs Group, based in Paris. Mr. Smith also serves on the Board of Directors of Netflix, Inc.

PART I

Item 1

AVAILABLE INFORMATION

Our Internet address is www.microsoft.com. At our Investor Relations website, www.microsoft.com/investor, we make available free of charge a variety of information for investors. Our goal is to maintain the Investor Relations website as a portal through which investors can easily find or navigate to pertinent information about us, including:

Our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to those reports, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file that material with, or furnish it to, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) at www.sec.gov.

Information on our business strategies, financial results, and metrics for investors.

Announcements of investor conferences, speeches, and events at which our executives talk about our product, service, and competitive strategies. Archives of these events are also available.

Press releases on quarterly earnings, product and service announcements, and legal developments.

Corporate governance information including our articles of incorporation, bylaws, governance guidelines, committee charters, codes of conduct and ethics, corporate responsibility initiatives, and other governance-related policies.

Other news and announcements that we may post from time to time that investors might find useful or interesting.

Opportunities to sign up for email alerts to have information pushed in real time.

We publish a variety of reports and resources related to our Corporate Responsibility programs and progress on our Reports Hub website, www.microsoft.com/corporate-responsibility/reports-hub, including the Environmental Sustainability Report, Microsoft Digital Defense Report, and Microsoft Impact Summary.

The information found on these websites is not part of, or incorporated by reference into, this or any other report we file with, or furnish to, the SEC. In addition to these channels, we use social media to communicate to the public. It is possible that the information we post on social media could be deemed to be material to investors. We encourage investors, the media, and others interested in Microsoft to review the information we post on the social media channels listed on our Investor Relations website.

PART I

Item 1A

ITEM 1A. RIS****K 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.

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.

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.

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.

PART I

Item 1A

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

PART I

Item 1A

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:

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

PART I

Item 1A

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

PART I