Microsoft and OpenAI partnership continues to change as they made a large announcement about their partnership going forward. Both OpenAI and Microsoft made the same announcement on their respective websites.
- Microsoft remains OpenAI’s primary cloud partner, and OpenAI products will ship first on Azure, unless Microsoft cannot and chooses not to support the necessary capabilities. OpenAI can now serve all its products to customers across any cloud provider.
- Microsoft will continue to have a license to OpenAI IP for models and products through 2032. Microsoft’s license will now be non-exclusive. 
- Microsoft will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI.
- Revenue share payments from OpenAI to Microsoft continue through 2030, independent of OpenAI’s technology progress, at the same percentage but subject to a total cap. 
- Microsoft continues to participate directly in OpenAI’s growth as a major shareholder. 
Microsoft played a major role in OpenAI’s initial growth, contributing financially and with Azure infrastructure. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also helped Sam Altman when he was almost ousted from OpenAI in 2023. The partnership has had it’s issues as of late in March, Microsoft was reportedly considering legal action against OpenAI because of Amazon’s $50 billion deal with OpenAI.
It’s worth noting Microsoft is working on its own AI models, which could potentially allow them to sperate from OpenAI.
Altman took to X today to speak about the announcement.
we have updated our partnership with microsoft.
microsoft will remain our primary cloud partner, but we are now able to make our products and services available across all clouds.
will continue to provide them with models and products until 2032, and a revenue share through…
— Sam Altman (@sama) April 27, 2026