OpenAI Revenue Chief Addresses Microsoft Partnership Limits in Internal Memo

OpenAI Memo Highlights Microsoft Partnership Constraints OpenAI's chief revenue officer Denise Dresser sent a memo to staffers on Sunday, which was viewed by CNBC.

In the memo, Dresser wrote: "Our Microsoft partnership has been foundational to our success. " The memo comes less than two months after Amazon announced plans to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI as part of a strategic partnership. OpenAI announced the partnership with Amazon at the end of February.

Inbound demand from customers for the Amazon offering has been staggering since the partnership announcement, according to Dresser.

Enterprise Business Growth and Leadership Changes OpenAI's enterprise business makes up 40% of the company's revenue, per Dresser.

The enterprise business is on track to reach parity with its consumer business by the end of the year, Dresser stated. OpenAI hired Denise Dresser as chief revenue officer in December. Dresser is the former CEO of Slack and a longtime Salesforce executive.

Dresser expanded her role to include Brad Lightcap's commercial responsibilities. Brad Lightcap transitioned from operating chief to a new position focused on special projects.

Investment and Valuation Context Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019.

Amazon Web Services gives companies access to all of the major AI models, including those from OpenAI, through a platform called Bedrock. OpenAI was valued at over $850 billion in its latest fundraising round in late March. Investors valued Anthropic at $380 billion a month after OpenAI's valuation.

Anthropic announced a deal with Google and Broadcom for multiple gigawatts of compute earlier this month. Microsoft added OpenAI to the list of competitors in its annual report in mid-2024.