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On paper, Microsoft remains OpenAI’s strategic partner, but the exclusive privileges Microsoft previously enjoyed from OpenAI no longer exist. OpenAI and Microsoft announced a comprehensively revised partnership on Monday of last week, ending the seven-year exclusivity period that began when Microsoft started investing in OpenAI in 2019.
Under the new agreement, OpenAI is allowed to cap revenue-share payments to Microsoft and, more importantly, has the right to serve customers on any cloud provider, including Amazon and Google. This is described as the biggest change in the relationship since the partnership began.
Legally, Microsoft will continue to hold a license to OpenAI’s intellectual property for its AI models and products through 2032, but the license is no longer exclusive. That means OpenAI can license similar technology to Microsoft’s rivals. Previously, Microsoft was the only partner allowed to deeply integrate OpenAI models into its products.
The revenue-sharing mechanism changes significantly. Previously, when customers paid for using OpenAI models via Azure, Microsoft had to share a portion with OpenAI. Under the revised terms, Microsoft keeps all that money.
In return, OpenAI still pays 20% of revenue to Microsoft whenever someone subscribes to ChatGPT, but now there is an “overall cap” that lasts only until 2030. The structure is intended to limit payments as revenue grows, rather than continuing indefinitely.
Microsoft remains OpenAI’s primary cloud provider, and OpenAI products will launch first on Azure unless Microsoft cannot or chooses not to support the required capabilities.
However, the agreement also allows OpenAI to serve “all of its products” to customers on any provider. OpenAI’s Chief Revenue Officer, Denise Dresser, raised this concern in an April memo, saying the Microsoft partnership “limits enterprise reach where they are present.”
The amended agreement follows OpenAI and Amazon’s strategic partnership announced in February 2026. Amazon agreed to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI, and OpenAI expanded its existing $38 billion deal with Amazon Web Services by another $100 billion over the next eight years.
In addition, AWS becomes the exclusive third-party cloud distributor for OpenAI’s Enterprise Frontier platform, a new product announced in early April. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote on X that AWS would provide OpenAI models to customers through the Bedrock service in the coming weeks.
Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion into OpenAI since 2019, building a partnership both sides have described as core and strategic. The relationship has shown signs of strain in recent months as partners move into each other’s territory.
In October 2025, after OpenAI completed a capital restructuring, Microsoft said its investment in OpenAI’s profit arm was valued at $135 billion, roughly 27% of the company on a diluted post-transaction basis. OpenAI also pledged $250 billion for Microsoft Azure cloud services.
However, shortly afterward, OpenAI pursued diversification through multi-billion-dollar deals with Microsoft’s rivals. After announcing the partnership with Amazon, Microsoft and OpenAI issued a joint statement saying their relationship remains “strong and central,” but the Monday announcement indicates that the meaning of “central” has shifted.
OpenAI said it is amending the agreement to “simplify the partnership and how we work together, based on flexibility, certainty, and a focus on broadly delivering the benefits of AI.”
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