Microsoft and OpenAI Amend Partnership Agreement for Long-Term AI Growth

Microsoft and OpenAI have announced an amended partnership agreement that alters the exclusivity and financial terms of their long-term relationship. The updated terms, disclosed by Microsoft on April 27, 2026, provide OpenAI with greater flexibility in how it distributes its products across different cloud environments while maintaining Microsoft as its primary infrastructure partner.

Under the new terms, OpenAI products will continue to ship first on the Azure cloud platform. However, this priority is subject to a condition: it applies unless Microsoft cannot and chooses not to support the necessary capabilities. In a significant shift from previous arrangements, OpenAI is now permitted to serve all of its products to customers across any cloud provider.

Changes to Intellectual Property and Licensing

The agreement also modifies the licensing of OpenAI’s intellectual property. Microsoft will maintain a license to OpenAI IP for models and products through 2032, but this license has transitioned to be non-exclusive.

This change allows OpenAI more latitude in how it manages its IP and potentially how it licenses its technology to other entities, while ensuring Microsoft retains access to the core technology for the next several years.

Financial Restructuring

The financial relationship between the two companies has been restructured to remove certain revenue-sharing obligations. Microsoft will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI.

Conversely, revenue share payments from OpenAI to Microsoft will continue through 2030. These payments remain at the same percentage and are independent of the progress of OpenAI’s technology, although they are now subject to a total cap.

Despite these changes to revenue flows, Microsoft remains a major shareholder in OpenAI and continues to participate directly in the company’s growth.

The greater predictability in the amended agreement strengthens our joint ability to build and operate AI platforms at scale while providing both companies the flexibility to pursue new opportunities.

The Official Microsoft Blog

Infrastructure and Future Collaboration

The amendment arrives as both companies scale their physical and technical infrastructure to meet the demands of generative AI. The partnership continues to focus on several high-capacity technical initiatives.

• Scaling gigawatts of new datacenter capacity to support increasing compute requirements.
• Collaborating on the development of next-generation silicon to optimize AI performance.
• Applying artificial intelligence to advance capabilities within the cybersecurity sector.

By decoupling some of the strict exclusivity and revenue requirements, the two companies aim to simplify their operational framework. This allows OpenAI to expand its market reach across various cloud providers while Microsoft continues to leverage Azure as the primary launchpad for OpenAI’s newest innovations.