On April 27, 2026, Microsoft and OpenAI announced an amended partnership agreement that formally ends the exclusivity arrangement between them. The deal caps OpenAI’s revenue share payments to Microsoft, removes the AGI clause, and allows OpenAI to serve customers across any cloud provider — including Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. The official statement was published simultaneously by both companies.
The changes follow OpenAI’s October 2025 recapitalization as a public benefit corporation and its February 2026 strategic partnership with Amazon. Giganectar previously covered OpenAI’s model roadmap in its GPT-5.5 release and API pricing breakdown.
6 Key Changes in the Amended Agreement
Each card covers one term from the joint statement published by both companies. Tap or click to flip and read the full detail.
OpenAI continues paying Microsoft 20% of its revenues — including every ChatGPT subscription — through 2030. Payments now have a total cap and continue regardless of whether OpenAI reaches AGI.
Microsoft will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI for Azure-hosted model use. Previously, a portion of Azure revenues from OpenAI model access was passed back to OpenAI each time users accessed models via the platform.
Microsoft retains a license to OpenAI’s intellectual property — models and products — through 2032. That license is now non-exclusive, meaning other companies can independently license OpenAI’s models as well.
Microsoft remains OpenAI’s primary cloud partner. OpenAI products still ship first on Azure — unless Microsoft cannot or chooses not to support the required capability. OpenAI can now serve all its products to customers via any cloud provider.
The old agreement required Microsoft to determine its response if OpenAI declared it had reached artificial general intelligence — AI that rivals or exceeds human intelligence. That clause has been removed entirely from the amended deal.
Microsoft continues as a major shareholder. Its stake — valued at approximately $135 billion and representing roughly 27% of OpenAI on an as-converted diluted basis — was set during the October 2025 recapitalization.
“Today, we are announcing an amended agreement to simplify our partnership and the way we work together, grounded in flexibility, certainty, and a focus on delivering the benefits of AI broadly.”
OpenAI — Joint statement with Microsoft, April 27, 2026
OpenAI’s Cloud Partners: Where Things Stand
The amended agreement formalises a shift that was already forming — OpenAI running simultaneously across multiple cloud providers. Here is what each relationship looks like now.
The Microsoft–OpenAI Partnership: Key Dates
From the first investment to the exclusivity exit — the milestones behind this amended deal.
Old Agreement vs. Amended Terms
Side-by-side breakdown of the specific terms that changed under the April 2026 amendment.
In a memo sent earlier in April, Denise Dresser, OpenAI’s revenue chief, wrote that the previous partnership had “limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are.” The amended deal was framed by both companies as a response to that constraint, providing more operational flexibility as OpenAI pursues enterprise customers across multiple cloud environments. The Microsoft blog described the outcome as providing “greater predictability” for both companies to build and operate AI platforms at scale.
The broader industry context adds weight to this shift. Meta recently committed to spending $48 billion across cloud providers CoreWeave ($21 billion) and Nebius (up to $27 billion) to supplement its own AI compute. AI model developers are seeing customers run agents that operate continuously over extended periods — workloads that demand flexible, multi-cloud infrastructure rather than a single-provider setup. Giganectar’s coverage of Meta’s AI data practices and Google’s open model strategy provides additional context for how the major AI players are positioning themselves.
Microsoft shares dipped slightly on the day of the announcement. The company retains its Azure-first shipment right and its position as OpenAI’s primary cloud partner. As Andy Jassy, Amazon’s CEO, wrote on X on April 27: “With this, builders will have even more choice to pick the right model for the right job” — noting that AWS would share more details at an event in San Francisco the following day.
The amended agreement between Microsoft and OpenAI was covered here in terms of its revenue share structure, IP licensing changes, cloud exclusivity terms, and the removal of the AGI clause. Both companies published a joint statement on April 27, 2026, with key financial terms running through 2030 and 2032 respectively. Microsoft’s position as a major shareholder and primary cloud partner for OpenAI was retained under the revised arrangement.
