Microsoft says OpenAI is now a competitor in AI and search

Microsoft‘s
relationship
with
OpenAI
has
officially
become
more
complicated.

On
Tuesday,
Microsoft
added
the
artificial
intelligence
startup
to
the
list
of
competitors
in
the
company’s

latest
annual
report.
It’s
a
roster
that
for
years
has
included
mega-cap
peers


Amazon,


Apple,


Google
and
Meta.

Microsoft
has
a
long-term
partnership
with
OpenAI,
serving
as
its
exclusive
cloud
provider
and
using
its
AI
models
in
products
for
commercial
clients
and
consumers.
Microsoft
is
the

biggest
investor
in
OpenAI,
having
poured
a
reported
$13
billion
into
the
company.

But
the
new
casting
indicates
they’re
moving
onto
one
another’s
turf.

In
the
filing,
Microsoft
identified
OpenAI,
the
creator
of
the
ChatGPT
chatbot,
as
a
competitor
in
AI
offerings
and
in
search
and
news
advertising.
Last
week
OpenAI

announced
a
prototype
of
a
search
engine
called
SearchGPT.

Some
companies
choose
to
pay
OpenAI
for
access
to
its
models.
Others
go
through
Microsoft’s
Azure
OpenAI
Service.
For
those
seeking
an
alternative
to
ChatGPT,
Microsoft’s
Copilot
chatbot
is
also
available
through
the
Bing
search
engine
and
in
Windows
operating
systems

An
OpenAI
spokesperson
told
CNBC
that
nothing
about
the
relationship
between
the
two
companies
has
changed
and
that
their
partnership
was
established
with
the
understanding
that
they
would
compete. 
Microsoft
remains
a
good
partner
to
OpenAI,
the
spokesperson
said. 

Still,
it’s
been
a
drama-packed
year.

Microsoft
CEO
Satya
Nadella

reportedly
wasn’t
briefed
before
OpenAI’s
board
pushed
out
CEO
Sam
Altman
in
November.
After
Altman
was
quickly
reinstated,
OpenAI
gave
Microsoft
a
non-voting
board
seat.
Microsoft

relinquished
the
position
earlier
this
month.

In
March,
Nadella

brought
on
Mustafa
Suleyman,
a
co-founder
of
DeepMind,
an
AI
research
company
that
predated
OpenAI
and
was
acquired
by
Google
in
2014.
Suleyman,
who
had
co-founded
and
led
startup
Inflection
AI,
was
named
CEO
of
a
new
unit
called
Microsoft
AI,
and
several
Inflection
employees
joined
him.

Nadella
remains
close
to
Altman.

“One
of
the
things
I
love
about
Sam
is
every
day
he’s
calling
me
and
saying,
‘I
need
more,
I
need
more,
I
need
more,'” Nadella
told
The

New
York
Times
in
a
recent
interview.

WATCH:

OpenAI
announces
a
search
engine
called
SearchGPT