OpenAI drops Microsoft exclusivity

OpenAI and Microsoft said Monday they rewrote their alliance, ending Microsoft’s exclusive license to OpenAI technology and opening the door to broader cloud distribution. (openai.com) (blogs.microsoft.com) Under the new terms, Microsoft keeps a license to OpenAI intellectual property for models and products through 2032, but that license is now non-exclusive. Microsoft also said it will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI. (openai.com) (blogs.microsoft.com) OpenAI will keep paying Microsoft a share of revenue through 2030 at the same percentage as before, and both companies said those payments are now subject to a total cap. The companies also said those payments no longer depend on whether OpenAI declares it has reached artificial general intelligence, or AGI. (openai.com) (cnbc.com) That is a sharp change from the terms Microsoft described on January 21, 2025, when it said Azure exclusivity on OpenAI application programming interfaces and revenue-sharing arrangements would continue through 2030. In October 2025, the companies still said Microsoft had exclusive intellectual property rights and Azure application programming interface exclusivity until AGI. (blogs.microsoft.com) (openai.com) The revised deal leaves Microsoft as OpenAI’s major shareholder and a long-term infrastructure partner, but it removes the biggest contractual barrier to selling OpenAI models beyond Azure. Bloomberg reported the change opens the way for OpenAI to pursue cloud deals with rivals including Amazon and Google. (openai.com) (bloomberg.com) Microsoft and OpenAI said they will keep working together on datacenter capacity and custom silicon, even as the commercial terms loosen. The companies framed the amendment as a simplification that gives both sides more flexibility while preserving product and infrastructure cooperation. (blogs.microsoft.com) (openai.com) The AGI clause had become one of the most unusual parts of the partnership because it tied some rights and obligations to a future threshold that OpenAI itself could determine under earlier versions of the deal. CNBC reported Monday that Microsoft no longer needs to decide how to respond if OpenAI says it has reached AGI. (cnbc.com) (openai.com) The result is a looser alliance than the one that helped make Azure the default home for OpenAI’s models. Microsoft still gets access through 2032, but it no longer gets the market to itself. (openai.com) (nytimes.com)