The famous AGI agreement between Microsoft and OpenAI has ended

The partnership between OpenAI and Microsoft has become less committed. A provision related to artificial general intelligence, which for years dictated the future of the deal, has been officially dropped.

On Monday morning, Microsoft announced a number of big changes to its long-term OpenAI deal. Microsoft will remain “the primary cloud partner for OpenAI, and OpenAI products will ship first on Azure, unless Microsoft can and chooses not to support the necessary capabilities.” But OpenAI “can now offer all of its products to customers via any cloud provider.” This allows OpenAI to pursue its goals of courting enterprise customers as it reportedly prepares to go public — opening the door to working with Amazon or Google, for example, and trying to ease restrictions on its computing that have led to disagreements with Microsoft. Microsoft appears to still receive a portion of the revenue from these external agreements.

Perhaps most importantly, the two companies eliminated the contract’s “AI clause,” which sets out a variety of conditions if one of them achieves “AI.” (It’s a vaguely defined industry term that typically means artificial intelligence systems that equal or exceed human intelligence at a wide range of tasks.)

This change affects the revenue sharing agreement, which was supposed to remain in place until the AGI was announced. But now, OpenAI’s upcoming revenue share payments to Microsoft will only continue until 2030 — and although they will continue at the “same percentage,” they will also be “subject to an overall cap” rather than continuing forever. The payments will also continue and then expire “independently of OpenAI’s technological advances,” which under any reasonable logic includes artificial general intelligence (AGI). So RIP to this deal.

This is the second renegotiation of this clause. When OpenAI completed its controversial for-profit restructuring In OctoberIt needed Microsoft’s blessing — and in the process of getting that blessing, the two companies hit it off New deal. Before the October contract changed hands, Microsoft would have lost its rights to the OpenAI technology once the latter reached AGI. But Microsoft’s intellectual property rights to OpenAI models and products have been extended until 2032 — and Microsoft’s rights include models until after A theoretically independent committee declares that AGI has been reached.

Now, there is no independent committee, no language for if or when an AGI will be announced, and OpenAI may never have to actually announce if it reaches that milestone. Microsoft’s license for OpenAI models and products it holds until 2032 is now up Not exclusive. Any other competitor can join now.

Microsoft previously owned about 27% (on a diluted basis, including all owners) in the public benefit corporation. The new terms state that “Microsoft continues to be directly involved in the growth of OpenAI as a major shareholder” but do not dictate Microsoft’s ownership stake, though there is also no indication that has changed.

the There is pressure on OpenAI to get closer to being profitableIt and its competitors have burned a lot of investors’ money in their quest for more computing and access to artificial general intelligence. OpenAI says it is focusing on projects and programming in order to go after potentially larger revenue drivers, and that it is systematically eliminating… So called “side quests” like Sora And exciting features planned for ChatGPT. It also restructured its scientific department. The new deal with Microsoft is another step.