OpenAI ends exclusivity with Microsoft

OpenAI and Microsoft rewrote their partnership on April 27, ending Microsoft’s exclusive rights to OpenAI technology and cloud distribution. (openai.com) (microsoft.com) The new terms keep Microsoft as OpenAI’s primary cloud partner, and OpenAI products will still ship first on Azure unless Microsoft cannot or chooses not to support the needed capabilities. (openai.com) (microsoft.com) OpenAI can now serve all of its products to customers across any cloud provider, and Microsoft’s license to OpenAI intellectual property through 2032 is now non-exclusive. (openai.com) (microsoft.com) The money also changed direction. Microsoft said it will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI, while OpenAI will keep paying Microsoft through 2030 at the same percentage, subject to a total cap. (microsoft.com) (cnbc.com) CNBC, citing a person familiar with the agreement, reported that percentage is 20%. Reuters reported the revised deal also removed the clause that could have let OpenAI stop paying Microsoft if OpenAI declared it had reached artificial general intelligence. (cnbc.com) (usnews.com) That is a sharp change from January 21, 2025, when Microsoft said Azure remained the exclusive cloud for the OpenAI application programming interface and said revenue sharing flowed both ways. (microsoft.com) The old arrangement had already started loosening around computing capacity. In January 2025, Microsoft said new capacity was moving to a right-of-first-refusal model and OpenAI had approval to build additional capacity mainly for research and training. (microsoft.com) The rewrite landed one day before Amazon said the latest OpenAI models, Codex, and Bedrock Managed Agents powered by OpenAI would be available in limited preview on Amazon Bedrock. (aboutamazon.com) (aws.amazon.com) Reuters reported last month that Microsoft had considered legal action over a proposed $50 billion Amazon-OpenAI cloud deal that it believed could violate the old exclusivity terms. (usnews.com) (techcrunch.com) Both companies framed the amendment as a way to add “flexibility” and “certainty” while keeping the broader alliance intact. The result is simpler to describe than the old pact: Microsoft still goes first on Azure, but OpenAI no longer belongs only to Azure. (openai.com) (microsoft.com)