OpenAI caps Microsoft revenue share

OpenAI and Microsoft rewrote their partnership on April 27, ending Microsoft’s exclusive license to OpenAI technology and loosening Azure’s lock on OpenAI sales. (openai.com) (microsoft.com) The new agreement says Microsoft remains OpenAI’s primary cloud partner, and OpenAI products will ship first on Azure unless Microsoft cannot or chooses not to support the needed capabilities. OpenAI can now serve all of its products to customers across any cloud provider. (openai.com) (microsoft.com) Microsoft will keep a license to OpenAI intellectual property for models and products through 2032, but that license is now non-exclusive. Microsoft also will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI. (openai.com) (microsoft.com) OpenAI will keep paying Microsoft a revenue share through 2030 at the same percentage as before, but the payments are now subject to a total cap. CNBC reported that percentage is 20%, citing a person familiar with the agreement. (openai.com) (cnbc.com) The amendment also removes one of the partnership’s most unusual triggers. Microsoft no longer needs to decide how to respond if OpenAI says it has reached artificial general intelligence, or AGI. (cnbc.com) That is a sharp change from the companies’ public position in January 2025, when Microsoft said exclusivity on OpenAI’s application programming interfaces, access to OpenAI IP, and two-way revenue sharing would continue through 2030. (microsoft.com) It is also a reversal from February 27, 2026, when Microsoft said Azure remained the exclusive cloud provider for stateless OpenAI application programming interfaces and said the revenue-share arrangement was unchanged. By April 27, both companies had replaced that structure with an Azure-first but non-exclusive setup. (microsoft.com 1) (microsoft.com 2) CNBC reported Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019. The same report said Denise Dresser, OpenAI’s revenue chief, wrote in an April memo that the old partnership had “limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are.” (cnbc.com) Both companies said the partnership still includes joint work on datacenter capacity, custom silicon and cybersecurity. The rewrite keeps Microsoft tied to OpenAI’s growth as a major shareholder, but with fewer exclusive rights than it had even months ago. (openai.com) (microsoft.com)