Microsoft, OpenAI rewrite partnership to eliminate exclusive model access, change revenue sharing

Daniel HowleyMon, April 27, 2026 at 2:05 PM UTC

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Microsoft (MSFT) on Monday announced an amended long-term agreement with OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) that will see the company no longer have exclusive access to the AI startup’s intellectual property and AI models, while also altering its revenue-sharing deal with OpenAI.

The news comes ahead of Microsoft’s earnings report on Wednesday, and just six months after the two companies formalized an agreement that allowed OpenAI to transform into a for-profit business.

Under the terms of that deal, Microsoft was given exclusive access to OpenAI’s IP and models until the company achieved artificial general intelligence (AGI), or AI that’s as smart or smarter than humans. The new agreement, however, eliminates that clause, allowing OpenAI to provide its models to Microsoft’s competitors.

Sam Altman, left, CEO of OpenAI, appears onstage with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at OpenAI DevDay, OpenAI's first developer conference, on Monday, Nov. 6, 2023 in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Barbara Ortutay) ()

Microsoft’s Azure will continue to serve as OpenAI’s primary cloud platform and get access to its latest products first, but the new agreement means OpenAI can now offer all of its services through competing cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services.

Microsoft will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI, though OpenAI will have to continue making revenue-sharing payments to Microsoft through 2030.

Mirosoft stock fell about 1% after the announcement.

The announcement comes just days before Microsoft reports its quarterly earnings, and as the company’s stock continues to face headwinds related to its AI growth and concerns that AI companies like OpenAI and rival Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) could upend the enterprise software market. Shares of Microsoft have lost around 20% over the last six months, while cloud competitors Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG) have climbed 17% and 30%, respectively.

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Part of the trouble for Microsoft stems from its ability to serve AI customers. In its last quarter, the company said its Azure business revenue would have grown 40% if it had enough data center capacity to meet demand. Instead, Azure revenue grew 38%. This growth rate will be closely watched by investors on Wednesday.

Microsoft and other software companies are also contending with investor concerns that AI labs will develop enterprise products that will cut into their market share, which, for Microsoft, could threaten its core offerings like the Office 365 Suite.

The thinking behind the SaaS-pocalypse, as it’s been called, is that as AI continues to advance and AI companies lean further into providing enterprise software capabilities, OpenAI, Anthropic, and others will steal customers away from traditional software players.

This fear has sent shares of Thomson Reuters (TRI), Salesforce (CRM), and ServiceNow (NOW) plunging. Both Salesforce and ServiceNow are down 31% year-to-date, while Thomson Reuters has fallen more than 40%.

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Source: “AOL Money”