Microsoft and OpenAI announced a renegotiated partnership on Monday that ends Microsoft’s exclusive rights to OpenAI’s products and intellectual property, replacing an open-ended arrangement with a nonexclusive licence running through 2032. The deal resolves a potential legal conflict triggered by OpenAI’s February agreement to give Amazon exclusive hosting rights to its agent-building tool, Frontier — terms Microsoft had publicly disputed and reportedly considered challenging in court.
Under the new arrangement, OpenAI can serve products across any cloud provider, while Azure retains preferred status as primary cloud partner. Microsoft will stop paying revenue share to OpenAI, though OpenAI will continue paying Microsoft through 2030 subject to a cap. Microsoft remains a roughly 27% shareholder in OpenAI’s for-profit entity, meaning it continues to benefit financially from OpenAI’s growth regardless of where its products are hosted.
