Microsoft and OpenAI have amended the terms of their partnership agreement, updating the revenue share deal between the partners and scrapping Microsoft’s IP exclusivity rights.

Microsoft will remain OpenAI’s "primary" cloud provider – shipping OpenAI products on Azure first where possible – but moving forward, the generative AI giant will serve “all its products to customers across any cloud provider.”

Revenue share payments from OpenAI to Microsoft will now be “subject to a total cap” but will continue through 2030, "independent of OpenAI’s technology progress.” This means that IP rights are no longer subject to OpenAI achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI).

In the original agreement, OpenAI was the group able to define what constituted AGI. However, that clause was updated in October 2025 when OpenAI transitioned to a for-profit public benefit corporation, handing decision-making powers an independent expert panel.

Microsoft will also no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI.

“While this amendment simplifies the partnership, the work we’re doing together remains ambitious,” both Microsoft and OpenAI said in identical statements. “From scaling gigawatts of new data center capacity, to collaborating on next-generation silicon, to applying AI to advance cybersecurity, and more, we’re excited to keep partnering to advance and scale AI for people and organizations around the world.“

On top of the change in revenue payments, Microsoft likely no longer needs to build data-center capacity for OpenAI as originally planned, potentially freeing capital for its Copilot platform and other cloud capacity.

"From Microsoft's perspective, it does not need to build out all the data center needs for OpenAI, freeing up ​capital for Copilot and other cloud capacity," Barclays analysts told Reuters, calling the ‌move a positive for both firms.

Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019, becoming its sole compute provider until demand for ChatGPT led OpenAI to seek additional compute resources.

Following the completion of OpenAI’s for-profit move, Microsoft’s 32.5% stake in the company was reduced to 27%, which, at the time, was worth around $135 billion.

Since then, OpenAI has closed a $122 billion funding round that saw it valued at $825 billion. Despite this, the company is on track to lose around $14 billion in 2026 alone, although the company claims it is now generating $2 billion in revenue per month and “growing revenue four-times faster than the companies that defined the internet and mobile eras, including Alphabet and Meta.”

Last month, following a $50 billion deal between Amazon Web Services (AWS) and OpenAI, it was reported that Microsoft was exploring taking legal action against the two companies should it determine that their $50 billion agreement violates its own exclusivity arrangements with OpenAI.