OpenAI is no longer an entity with hybrid control and is now a fully fledged company. That is, for profit. Microsoft, which had special rights and a seat on its board, give up that position in exchange for something more stable:
- Guaranteed and perpetual access to OpenAI models (current and future).
- Freedom to create your own foundational models without restrictions.
Gain independence without losing technology.
Why is it important. This does not make Microsoft the owner of OpenAI, but rather the platform that turns its AI into a mass product. OpenAI can continue investigating, but Microsoft remains the one who controls access to users and companies.
Distribution defines power today, even above invention.
The general overview. Microsoft has been transforming its business from selling licenses to selling continuous dependency for more than a decade:
- Office 365 eliminated or relegated the option to purchase the software only once.
- Windows 10 introduced mandatory updates that turned the operating system into permanent service.
- Azure has tied enterprise infrastructure to its cloud.
The pattern is consistent: turning tools into platforms, products into subscriptions, and options into inevitabilities. The agreement with OpenAI is not an exception, it is the culmination.
In detail. Microsoft maintains something that no other actor has:
- Direct integration of Copilot in Office, Teams, Outlook and Windows.
- Large-scale business contracts that turn AI into the structural cost of digital work.
- Control over the point of entry: the place where millions of people work every day.
The new agreement ensures that OpenAI cannot turn off the tap, and that Microsoft can expand or replace its models without depending on third parties.
The strategic background. Until now, Microsoft could not develop its own AGI. Now yes. This allows you two parallel routes:
- Use OpenAI models in your ecosystem.
- Develop your own (or integrate with others) if OpenAI gets sidetracked or delayed.
Gain technological freedom and commercial stability. But above all, you gain something more valuable: the certainty that AI will not be optional in your software.
Between the lines. The move consolidates Microsoft as the main consumer channel for AI at work. Not by contract, but by market position.
Millions of users already pay for Copilot without expressly choosing it. Companies assume it as part of the normal cost of productivity. There is no real alternative: if you work in Word, you use Copilot. If you manage emails in Outlook, you use Copilot. If you coordinate teams in Teams, you use Copilot.
Yes, but. This is not the traditional technological domain. Microsoft doesn’t need to have the best AI. You just need to have the most integrated one. OpenAI can be brighter, Google can be faster, Meta can be more open (or not so open). It doesn’t matter, because none of them are inside the software where the work is done.
AI is no longer an add-on. It becomes invisible infrastructure.
The contrast. Other technological giants continue to bet on the excellence of the model:
Everyone competes to have the best technology, but Microsoft competes for something else: to be the place where that technology is used, regardless of who created it.
In summary:
- OpenAI is freed to grow as a company.
- Microsoft makes sure that no matter what happens, AI runs through its software.
- The rest of the industry competes to invent. Microsoft has won by distributing.
Does not sell AI. Sell inevitability.
In Xataka | AI works better if you are edge
Featured image | Microsoft
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