OpenAI told partners that it expects to be sharing roughly 8% of its revenue with commercial collaborators by the end of the decade, down from an estimated 20% under current arrangements, The Information reported Friday. "OpenAI has projected that by the end of the decade it will be sharing about 8% of its revenue with commercial partners," the outlet said, adding that "the difference between those figures adds up to more than $50 billion in additional revenue OpenAI would keep for itself."

The revelation underscores how the rapid commercialisation of generative AI is forcing a reordering of value across the technology stack. Microsoft, OpenAI's largest commercial partner and cloud supplier, is likely to be most directly affected. Under current arrangements, partners that provide cloud compute, sales channels and integration services receive a substantial fraction of gross receipts; reducing that take could materially boost OpenAI's margins and cash flow if the company achieves the revenue trajectories it expects.

Industry executives and analysts said the move, if confirmed, would reflect both the maturation of OpenAI's product offering and its increasing leverage as a supplier of foundational models. "As usage scales and OpenAI internalizes more of the model deployment and tooling, it's logical the company would seek to capture a larger share of revenue," said one industry consultant who asked not to be named. The Information's reporting, which Reuters summarized, did not include immediate responses from OpenAI or Microsoft.

Market implications are immediate. For cloud providers that historically monetized demand for compute, a smaller revenue share for partners could compress long-term upside from AI-driven workload growth. That might prompt cloud firms to renegotiate commercial terms, push for commitments on capacity purchases, or accelerate vertical integration—buying or building more application layers themselves to preserve revenue streams. Investors will be watching profit margins at firms that currently rely on OpenAI partnerships for new revenue, particularly if OpenAI's retained earnings are redeployed into product development, sales or lower prices for end customers.

The disclosure also raises antitrust and policy questions. Regulators in the United States and Europe are increasingly scrutinizing how market power concentrates in AI ecosystems. A change that channels tens of billions of dollars toward a single model provider could intensify concerns about gatekeeping, dependency on a few model vendors, and the incentives for exclusive deals that limit competition. Policymakers weighing rules on interoperability, data access and cloud-market conduct may view such commercial realignments as evidence of the need for clearer guardrails.

Longer term, the shift would be consistent with a pattern in digital markets: as platforms and core technologies scale, value accrues to providers of foundational infrastructure unless countervailing competitive forces or regulation intervene. For customers, the net effect could be mixed. Lower partner cuts might enable OpenAI to lower prices or invest more in safety and customization, but fewer incentives for integrators could slow the pace of tailored applications to specific industries.

The Information's report marks another sign of how commercial arrangements forged in early AI deployments are being renegotiated as the market matures. Whether the projected 8% figure becomes the new norm will depend on bargaining between OpenAI and its commercial partners, regulatory scrutiny and the pace at which end users translate AI demand into durable revenue.