OpenAI has the green light to work with Amazon or any other cloud provider, though there are some strings attached.
On Monday, OpenAI and Microsoft — its largest investor — announced yet another shake-up to their long-term partnership. The modified terms came around 6 months after the pair restructured their agreement in October 2025, following OpenAI’s completion of its corporate restructuring.
As part of the new deal, Microsoft will remain OpenAI’s primary cloud partner and OpenAI will ship its products on Azure first “unless Microsoft cannot and chooses not to support the necessary capabilities.”
In that event, OpenAI can work with any other cloud partner. It’s a big change from an exclusive partnership that Microsoft viewed as potentially being violated by a deal between OpenAI and Amazon Web Services, The Financial Times reported in March. Microsoft was considering legal action to stop the $50 billion deal for OpenAI’s new enterprise product, the FT reported.
OpenAI is also now able to serve its products to customers across any cloud provider.
In another change, Microsoft’s license to OpenAI’s products, which it has through 2032, is now non-exclusive.
According to their joint statement, Microsoft will also no longer pay revenue share to OpenAI. While OpenAI will continue to pay Microsoft through 2030 as part of its revenue share agreement going in the opposite direction, but that’s now “independent of OpenAI’s technology progress” and OpenAI’s payments to Microsoft will now be capped.
This language removes some of the weight of what would happen if OpenAI declared it reached AGI, the theoretical state in which AI achieves human-like intelligence, though the exact definition is hotly debated. Previously, if an expert panel agreed that OpenAI had reached AGI, then the revenue-sharing payments would end.
Microsoft, which was one of the first major investors, will remain a shareholder in OpenAI.
“Its good to get this ongoing partnership limbo now in the rear view mirror, as we view this as a net positive for Microsoft as the company locks in a 6-year IP control over OpenAI technology and maintains a significant share of OpenAI while ending the back-and-forth between Redmond and OpenAI and setting the stage for Microsoft to get all revenue generation on its core platform,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a Monday note.
“We believe this puts OpenAI on a strong path forward to going public through IPO given its clearer opportunity in the cloud environment while reducing significant barriers from its original partnership with Microsoft,” the analyst added.
This isn’t the only potential major development for OpenAI’s future.
On Monday, jury selection will begin in the closely watched trial involving Elon Musk, OpenAI, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. OpenAI’s initial partnership with Microsoft was one of the major breaking points that ultimately set Musk on a path to start rival xAI. Musk wants a federal judge to reverse OpenAI’s corporate transformation back to the nonprofit that Musk and Altman helped create.
