OpenAI Pushes Amazon Channel

OpenAI is pushing deeper into Amazon’s cloud channel as it tries to sell more tools to large companies. (cnbc.com) In a memo sent Sunday and reported by CNBC on April 13, 2026, chief revenue officer Denise Dresser told staff that Amazon is a key enterprise growth driver and said Microsoft had “limited” OpenAI’s reach with some customers. Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019. (cnbc.com) OpenAI and Amazon announced a new partnership on February 27, 2026. Under that deal, Amazon Web Services becomes the exclusive third-party cloud distribution provider for OpenAI Frontier, and Amazon said it would invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI. (openai.com) The Amazon deal also gives OpenAI another route into companies that already buy artificial intelligence tools through Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Web Services’ model marketplace. OpenAI said the two companies are building a “Stateful Runtime Environment” for agents on Bedrock and that OpenAI will use 2 gigawatts of Amazon Trainium capacity. (openai.com) At the same time, OpenAI has started publishing clearer commercial terms for workplace plans. Its Help Center rate card says Business, Enterprise, and Edu customers now buy advanced features with credits, with GPT-5.4 Thinking priced at 10 credits per message, GPT-5.4 Pro at 50, Deep Research at 50 credits per task, and image generation at 5 credits per image. (help.openai.com) OpenAI also changed how it charges for Codex, its coding product, on April 2, 2026. The Codex rate card says new and existing Plus, Pro, and ChatGPT Business customers, along with new Enterprise customers, now pay by token usage instead of by message. (help.openai.com) A separate pricing note says ChatGPT Business and ChatGPT Enterprise now have two seat types: a standard ChatGPT seat and a Codex-only seat. OpenAI says those flexible-pricing seats are available to Business and Enterprise customers, but not to Edu, Teachers, or Healthcare plans. (help.openai.com) OpenAI has been signaling that enterprise sales are becoming a larger share of its business. In an April 8 note, Dresser said enterprise now accounts for more than 40% of OpenAI revenue and is on track to reach parity with consumer revenue by the end of 2026. (openai.com) Microsoft has not publicly matched Dresser’s criticism in the memo, but Microsoft’s corporate blog still listed a February 27, 2026 “joint statement” with OpenAI on continuing the partnership. That leaves the two companies in the position of remaining close partners while OpenAI builds new routes to customers through Amazon. (blogs.microsoft.com)