An updated deal between OpenAI and Microsoft will see the ChatGPT owner able to serve all of its products via cloud providers other than Microsoft.
The partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI is a big part of the reason the company was able to quickly expand ChatGPT and other services over the past few years. A new “amended agreement,” though, will sever some of the exclusivity that Microsoft has seen in terms of hosting OpenAI services.
The two companies summarize the changes in the following points:
- Microsoft remains OpenAI’s primary cloud partner, and OpenAI products will ship first on Azure, unless Microsoft cannot and chooses not to support the necessary capabilities. OpenAI can now serve all its products to customers across any cloud provider.
- Microsoft will continue to have a license to OpenAI IP for models and products through 2032. Microsoft’s license will now be non-exclusive.
- Microsoft will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI.
- Revenue share payments from OpenAI to Microsoft continue through 2030, independent of OpenAI’s technology progress, at the same percentage but subject to a total cap.
- Microsoft continues to participate directly in OpenAI’s growth as a major shareholder.
The biggest change here is that OpenAI can now serve “all its products” through “any cloud provider,” as some products, such as the GPT API, were exclusively available via Azure. In theory, this could bring down prices for customers as Creative Strategies analyst (and occasional 9to5Google contributor) Max Weinbach brings out.
Google’s cloud services are likely to benefit here, as OpenAI already leverages Google Cloud for ChatGPT.
More on AI:
- OpenAI rolls out GPT-5.5 with improved contextual understanding, Plus and up
- Google updates best AI models for coding Android apps, Gemini & GPT 5.4 at the top
- Gemini app using Personal Intelligence, Photos for tailored Nano Banana generation
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