OpenAI cozied up to Amazon Web Services on Tuesday, announcing a "major expansion" of their partnership just 24 hours after restructuring its financial ties with longtime backer Microsoft. The deal centers on co-developing a new platform for AI agents that can perform computer-based tasks on people's behalf, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said via prerecorded video at an AWS event in San Francisco.
Altman recorded the remarks while appearing in federal court across the bay in Oakland for a civil trial brought by OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk. The timing is no coincidence. On Monday, Microsoft said it will stop paying OpenAI a share of its revenue, the clearest signal yet that the pair are untethering a partnership that sparked the AI boom.
OpenAI will continue paying Microsoft a cut through 2030, though that rate is now capped.
Microsoft remains OpenAI's primary cloud partner, Azure gets first dibs on new products unless it "cannot and chooses not to support the necessary capabilities," per both companies' joint statement. Altman's appearance at an AWS event made clear he believes Amazon has those capabilities.
"These systems need to run reliably and robustly," Altman said. "They need to be secure. They need to scale, and they need to fit in the environments where companies already run their businesses.
That's what makes this partnership with AWS so important."
OpenAI, founded as a nonprofit, has transformed into a for-profit enterprise eyeing an IPO. That shift pushed it to diversify beyond exclusive reliance on Microsoft's cloud infrastructure, adding Amazon, Google, and Oracle as partners.
Its chief revenue officer, Denise Dresser, appeared alongside AWS CEO Matt Garman at Tuesday's event.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives called Monday's Microsoft-OpenAI restructuring a move that "puts OpenAI on a strong path forward to going public through IPO given its clearer opportunity in the cloud environment." He noted it also lets Microsoft develop independence from OpenAI as it builds its Copilot assistant with other AI providers like Anthropic.
