Microsoft Discloses OpenAI Generates Most of Its AI Business Revenue

IT Home reported on August 6 that, according to the latest data disclosed by Microsoft, most of the revenue from its artificial intelligence business comes from its long-term partner OpenAI. In a filing submitted last week, Microsoft said that for the fiscal year ended in June, its revenue from OpenAI reached $24.1 billion (IT Home note: approximately 162.969 billion yuan at the current exchange rate). Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella previously said that, as of the end of March, the company’s annualized AI revenue had reached $37 billion (approximately 250.202 billion yuan at the current exchange rate). However, when Microsoft released its fourth-quarter fiscal results last week, it did not update the total revenue for its AI business.

This means that in Microsoft’s most recent fiscal year, OpenAI contributed more than half, and possibly close to 70%, of its AI business revenue, highlighting Microsoft’s continued heavy reliance on this key partner. Under their agreement, OpenAI pays Microsoft for computing capacity and AI model development costs, while also sharing a portion of its revenue as agreed. In recent years, Microsoft has sought to reduce its dependence on OpenAI, for example by investing in Anthropic and developing its own AI models. However, investors have continued to focus on one question: How much of Microsoft’s AI business revenue comes from OpenAI?

Bloomberg analysis suggests that if Microsoft’s AI business maintains the 123% annualized growth rate it announced in March, its AI business revenue for the fiscal year ended in June would be approximately $34 billion (approximately 229.915 billion yuan at the current exchange rate). This means that the $24.1 billion (approximately 162.969 billion yuan at the current exchange rate) contributed by OpenAI accounted for most of that total.

Microsoft has publicly disclosed the overall scale of its AI business only twice so far. The first disclosure came for the quarter ended in December 2024, when the company said that annualized revenue from the business had exceeded $13 billion (approximately 87.909 billion yuan at the current exchange rate). The second came for the quarter ended in March this year, when Microsoft said that annualized AI business revenue was expected to surpass $37 billion (approximately 250.202 billion yuan at the current exchange rate).

Microsoft said that its AI business revenue includes revenue generated by all AI customers, as well as revenue from selling AI products to all customers. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that the figures above include all service revenue and revenue sharing received from OpenAI.

Viewed in the context of Microsoft’s overall business, OpenAI’s contribution is much smaller, accounting for less than 10% of Microsoft’s total revenue. Microsoft said that the company added approximately $51 billion (approximately 344.873 billion yuan at the current exchange rate) in commercial bookings during its most recent quarter, mainly from customers other than AI startups. However, in terms of growth in bookings for the full year, OpenAI remains the largest source of growth.

Before this disclosure, Microsoft had never explicitly made public its complete revenue from OpenAI. Olga Usvyatsky, founder of data analytics firm Nonlinear Analytics and an accounting researcher, believes that the disclosure may be related to OpenAI’s efforts to advance its initial public offering (IPO) plans.

However, a key question remains unanswered by the market. KeyBanc analyst Jackson Ader said it is still unclear how much of the $24.1 billion (approximately 162.969 billion yuan at the current exchange rate) contributed by OpenAI came from the revenue-sharing agreement between the two companies, and how much came from cloud computing services or other products and services provided by Microsoft.

He said: “If more of this revenue comes from businesses such as Microsoft providing cloud services to OpenAI, rather than relying on investment gains, I would evaluate Microsoft’s AI business more positively.”