The AGI Clause Was Always a Sham
The defining feature of the Microsoft OpenAI deal a clause that supposedly tied the partnership to the moment artificial general intelligence arrived is dead. The two companies quietly scrubbed the AGI trigger from their contract, removing the independent panel that was supposed to decide when humanity had created a godlike AI. This was never about governance. It was a marketing gimmick to make the partnership feel historic and inevitable. Now that OpenAI needs to chase revenue across any cloud provider including Amazon and Google the pretense of waiting for a hypothetical superintelligence just got in the way of real money.
Revenue Sharing Gets Capped. So Does Ambition.
The revenue sharing arrangement that was supposed to run until AGI now has a hard stop in 2030, with a total cap. Microsoft still gets paid, but the perpetual license is gone. OpenAI can finally shop its models to any cloud, breaking the exclusive Azure lock that had been a source of tension. The subtext is clear: OpenAI is preparing to go public, and it cannot afford to be tethered to a single partner or a fuzzy milestone. The AGI clause was a convenient fiction that let both companies posture as visionaries. Now it is just business. The cap on payments is a tacit admission that AGI may never come or that it will not look like the marketing brochure.
No Panel, No Oversight, No Accountability
With the clause gone, there is no trigger for declaring AGI, no independent body to evaluate progress, and no transparency obligation. Microsoft keeps a non exclusive license to OpenAI models through 2032, but any competitor can now license the same tech. This effectively kills the notion that OpenAI would hold back AGI for Microsoft alone. The real story is that OpenAI has shed the last pretense of altruistic governance. The company is now a straightforward vendor, free to sell its wares to the highest bidder. The AGI clause was the last thread connecting OpenAI to its nonprofit origins. Now it is just another contractor answering to investors.
Source: Theverge
