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Microsoft Appears to Have Made More Concessions Than Gains Under Amended Deal With OpenAI, UBS Says

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-- Microsoft (MSFT) appears to have made more concessions than gains under the recently amended agreement between the company and OpenAI, UBS said in a research note emailed Tuesday.

Microsoft effectively loses its application programming interface, or API, exclusivity, with OpenAI now allowed to host all its products on other cloud providers, UBS said, adding that this development appears to be a major win for Amazon (AMZN).

Microsoft's access to OpenAI's intellectual property continues to run through 2032, but it is now non-exclusive, representing another concession, according to UBS.

In its view, UBS said that OpenAI needs more compute and Microsoft may be unable or unwilling to provide as it works to become a larger compute partner to Anthropic and fulfil its internal needs.

UBS said that both Microsoft and OpenAI are increasingly becoming direct knowledge work rivals and soon even artificial intelligence coding model opponents, and that OpenAI is scaling so fast that current revenue share terms were likely untenable.

UBS maintained its buy rating with a $510 price target on Microsoft.

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