OpenAI and Microsoft Reaffirm Core Deal Terms After New Funding Announcements

The statement’s core message: new deals, same foundation

OpenAI and Microsoft published a joint statement on February 27, 2026 to clarify how OpenAI’s new funding and partnership announcements relate to their existing alliance. The companies said nothing announced that day changes the terms previously described in their October 2025 joint post. They also reiterated that their collaboration, which began in 2019, remains central across research, engineering, and product development.

What remains unchanged in contract economics

Three points stand out. First, Microsoft’s exclusive license and IP access across OpenAI models and products remain in place. Second, the commercial and revenue-share arrangement is unchanged, including revenue-sharing from OpenAI partnerships with other cloud providers. Third, Azure remains the exclusive cloud provider for stateless OpenAI APIs, and stateless API calls resulting from third-party collaborations, including Amazon-related arrangements, are still hosted on Azure.

The statement also says OpenAI first-party products, including Frontier, continue to run on Azure. In other words, both API access economics and key first-party hosting commitments remain aligned with the existing Microsoft-centric architecture.

AGI clause stability, with room for broader compute sourcing

The companies further said contractual AGI definitions and the process for determining AGI are unchanged. That detail matters because it preserves legal predictability for enterprise customers and for long-horizon planning around governance and deployment rights.

At the same time, the statement acknowledges OpenAI can commit additional compute outside the core arrangement as it scales, including through large infrastructure programs such as Stargate. This combination suggests a layered strategy: preserve the incumbent commercial framework while allowing selective expansion in physical capacity.

Why this matters for the market

Investors and customers were watching whether OpenAI’s new capital and partner base would imply a reset of Microsoft economics. The statement argues the opposite. The platform’s main API-commercial spine remains stable, while OpenAI gains flexibility to broaden compute supply. For enterprises, that likely means less contract uncertainty in the near term. For competitors, it signals that OpenAI and Microsoft are not unwinding their relationship; they are adapting it to support larger global demand without discarding the existing distribution and monetization model.