Since 2019 Microsoft and OpenAI have been building something more than a collaboration: an alliance to push artificial intelligence forward and make its benefits as accessible as possible. Now they announce a new definitive agreement that reshapes the structure, reaffirms commitments, and opens different paths for both companies. What does that mean for you?

The essentials of the new agreement

OpenAI is moving toward forming a public benefit corporation (PBC) and is doing a recapitalization. After that process, Microsoft will hold an investment in OpenAI Group PBC valued at approximately $135 billion, which represents around 27 percent on a diluted converted basis, including employees, investors and the OpenAI Foundation.

Before the recent funding rounds, Microsoft held 32.5 percent of OpenAI’s for-profit entity. What does that mean in practice? The relationship remains deep, but there are key changes to how rights, products and responsibilities will be shared.

What changes and why it matters

• AGI declared by OpenAI will now be verified by an independent panel of experts. It’s not just trust between companies; there’s an external technical arbiter.

• Microsoft keeps extended intellectual property (IP) rights through 2032, and those rights now include models developed after AGI, always with safety guardrails.

• Research IP — meaning the confidential methods used to develop models — will remain under Microsoft’s rights until the panel verifies AGI or until 2030, whichever comes first. This does not include model architectures, weights, inference code, fine-tuning code, or IP related to data-center hardware and software; Microsoft retains those non-research rights.

• IP related to OpenAI consumer hardware is excluded from Microsoft’s rights.

• OpenAI will be able to develop products jointly with third parties. Products that are APIs and developed with third parties will remain exclusive to Azure. Products that are not APIs will be able to run on any cloud provider.

• Microsoft now has formal freedom to pursue AGI on its own or in partnership with others.

• If Microsoft uses OpenAI IP to develop AGI before an official declaration, those models will be subject to compute thresholds that are significantly higher than those used to train current leading models.

• The revenue-sharing agreement stays in place until the panel verifies AGI, but payments will be made over a longer period.

• OpenAI commits to purchasing an additional $250 billion in Azure services, and Microsoft will no longer have a right of first refusal to be OpenAI’s compute provider.

• OpenAI will be able to offer API access to U.S. national security customers regardless of cloud provider.

• OpenAI may release open-weight models (open weight) that meet determined capability criteria.

In short: the alliance remains strong, but now with limits, external verifiers and more flexibility for each company to grow on its own.

Practical implications for different actors

• For developers and startups: the possibility that some API products remain exclusive to Azure may influence your infrastructure and cost decisions. But the ability to publish models with released weights can boost research and competition.

• For companies and corporate adoption: Microsoft’s extended rights until 2032 offer some predictability about how advanced technologies will be licensed, though the eventual verification of AGI by an independent panel is a new variable.

• For cloud competition: OpenAI will still buy a lot of services on Azure, but it loses the right of preference; additionally, the ability to run non-API products on any cloud opens space for multicloud strategies.

• For governments and security: permitting access for U.S. national security customers regardless of cloud changes the landscape for public procurement and model governance.

What should you remember as a user or professional?

The main takeaway isn’t just the huge numbers or the valuation: it’s that the relationship is evolving toward a balance between deep collaboration and strategic autonomy. External verifiers and clear timelines for different types of IP are introduced, Microsoft’s rights expand in some areas, and OpenAI gains new freedoms in others.

And for society? Powerful technologies will continue to be developed under more complex contractual frameworks, with implications for who can use what, when, and under which conditions. It’s a reminder that technical governance and commercial decisions go hand in hand.

Original source

https://openai.com/index/next-chapter-of-microsoft-openai-partnership