OpenAI and Microsoft's alliance fractures as cloud exclusivity deal ends — Azure's single-provider monopoly for ChatGPT is officially over

Tech Industry Artificial Intelligence OpenAI and Microsoft's alliance fractures as cloud exclusivity deal ends — Azure's single-provider monopoly for ChatGPT is officially over MEMBER EXCLUSIVE News Analysis By Jon Martindale published 28 April 2026 OpenAI and Microsoft outline terms. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images) Share Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Microsoft and OpenAI have once again renegotiated the terms of their deal with one another, but it might be what's best for both of them. OpenAI and Microsoft have announced an end to their exclusive arrangement, and a re-jigging of how they handle model oversight, revenue sharing, and cloud deployments. Microsoft will no longer pay OpenAI for what it makes from Copilot, but OpenAI no longer has to exclusively use Azure servers for ChatGPT, opening it up for further deals with other cloud service providers.What this means for the ever-nebulous AGI clause that both companies were so keen to retain access to and control over, if and when it materializes, remains to be seen. It's an intriguing move that leaves the immediate future of both companies' AI efforts uncertain, but perhaps it's better than Microsoft's legal department firing all barrels at OpenAI over its recent deal with Amazon.Where's the ROI?One of the biggest questions of the AI industry over the past year and a half has been the source of profit. Not the infrastructure investment, or the circular deals and token IOUs, but the real profit. For the investors who pumped tens of billions of dollars into OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, and for the shareholders who ballooned Microsoft, Google, and Meta's stock prices off the back of these mega deals and unprecedented investment plans.Article continues below You may like Microsoft and OpenAI end exclusivity agreement, opening up potential partnerships with Amazon and Google Microsoft considering suing OpenAI over Altman's recent deal with Amazon, report claims Amazon invests $50 billion in OpenAI, comitting to 2 gigawatts of Trainium silicon Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella hinted at this in January, when he said at the World Economic Forum that AI companies needed to find a clear use for the technology or risk losing the "social permission" to continue the work.That seems to be more of a pressing issue for Microsoft by April, when it announced that Copilot use on GitHub would move to token-based billing — that is, charging users for the amount of tokens they use, rather than on a per-request basis. No longer would shorter requests with shorter responses cost as much as longer, more in-depth queries. From June, this will result in users paying more when Copilot is verbose in its responses, or when it has to analyze more data before making its suggestions.Microsoft is already doing that with Azure agents, and it's also set to raise the price of Microsoft 365 with its Copilot integration by several dollars a month for most tiers.According to internal documents reportedly shared with journalist Ed Zitron, this move came because Microsoft had faced a more-than-doubling of its Copilot-related costs from January this year. He also claims Microsoft will take further steps to tighten controls and increase earnings from…

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