OpenAI is shifting toward Amazon amid strain in its Microsoft deal

OpenAI’s new revenue chief is betting on Amazon to grow the company’s business with corporate clients, even as she acknowledged that the long-running deal with Microsoft has held the AI firm back.

Denise Dresser, who recently took on the top revenue role at OpenAI, sent a note to employees on Sunday laying out her strategy for winning more business clients.

At the center of that strategy is a new alliance with Amazon and a candid admission that the company’s ties to Microsoft have come at a cost.

“Our Microsoft partnership has been foundational to our success. But it has also limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are, for many that’s Bedrock,” Dresser wrote in the memo, which was obtained by CNBC.

Amazon Web Services runs a platform called Bedrock that gives businesses access to a wide range of AI models, including those made by OpenAI.

Amazon said in late February that it plans to put up to $50 billion into OpenAI as part of a broader deal between the two companies. Since that announcement, Dresser said the number of businesses reaching out about the Amazon offering has been “staggering.”

Microsoft makes its own moves

Microsoft is OpenAI’s longest-standing major investor, having invested over $13 billion since 2019. However, the relationship has become more complex.

In its yearly report to regulators, Microsoft included OpenAI along with Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta as competitors around the middle of 2024.

For its part, OpenAI has discreetly begun utilizing other cloud providers, such as CoreWeave, Google, and Oracle, for processing power.

Additionally, Microsoft is taking steps to reduce its reliance on OpenAI.

The company’s proprietary AI tools, MAI-Transcribe-1, MAI-Voice-1, and MAI-Image-2, were made available via its Azure AI Foundry platform in mid-April.

To lower the cost of operating large-scale AI, Microsoft is also investing $10 billion in developing AI systems in nations like Japan and Thailand using its own proprietary chips, the Maya 200 and Cobalt 200.

All of this comes just ahead of a major moment for Microsoft. The company is set to report its fiscal third-quarter 2026 earnings on April 29.

Analysts expect Microsoft to post adjusted earnings per share of $4.04, a 16.8% increase from the same period last year.

But investors are paying close attention to how fast Azure, Microsoft’s cloud business, is growing. It recently slowed to a 39% year-over-year pace.

Analysts at Bernstein said that while a record $37.5 billion in capital spending is partly going toward building internal AI models, some of that investment is generating solid returns through software services.

OpenAI takes aim at Anthropic

On OpenAI’s side, the pressure to grow its corporate business is real.

Dresser said that enterprise clients now account for 40% of OpenAI’s total revenue and that the company expects that share to match its consumer business by year’s end.

One rival standing in the way is Anthropic, whose Claude model has built a strong foothold among corporate customers.

Dresser took a shot at Anthropic’s reported numbers, claiming that the company’s stated revenue run rate of $30 billion is overstated by about $8 billion because of how it counts revenue from money it shares with Amazon and Google.

“We report Microsoft rev share net, which is more in line with standards we would be held to as a public company,” she wrote.

As April 29 draws closer, observers of Microsoft will be monitoring for indications that Azure AI is accelerating, that its Copilot tools are producing actual revenue, and for any updates on the direction of its capital expenditures.

Microsoft and OpenAI both assert that their collaboration is still crucial.

However, the actions taken by each business reveal a different picture, one in which both parties are discreetly preparing to stand alone. In reality, this reflects smart strategic hedging rather than an impending breakup.

Both companies are simply reducing single points of failure in a hyper-competitive market while keeping the core partnership intact for now.

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