OpenAI and Microsoft rewrite their $13 billion deal: Here’s what changes

For years, OpenAI’s biggest financial backer was also its biggest constraint. That changed Monday. OpenAI and Microsoft announced a revised partnership that ends Microsoft’s exclusive license to OpenAI’s technology—the same technology Microsoft had been backing since 2019, to the tune of $13 billion. The new deal allows OpenAI to sell its products freely across rival cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. It’s as much an admission as it is an agreement: the old arrangement wasn’t working for OpenAI anymore.

The tension had surfaced publicly earlier this month, when OpenAI revenue chief Denise Dresser sent an internal memo telling staff that the Microsoft partnership “has limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are—for many, that’s Bedrock.”