Microsoft's OpenAI business brought in $10 billion last quarter

Microsoft generated $10 billion in revenue from its commercial dealings with OpenAI during the quarter that ended September 30, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing this week. The amount includes revenue-sharing payments OpenAI makes to Microsoft under their partnership agreement. Because Microsoft’s financial year starts in July, this was the first quarter of its 2027 fiscal year.

The sum equals close to 11% of Microsoft’s total quarterly revenue of $92.3 billion. The size of that share shows how closely the two companies’ finances remain tied together even as they compete for some of the same corporate customers in cloud computing and AI services.

Over the full 2026 fiscal year, Microsoft collected $24.1 billion from OpenAI-related arrangements. At the pace set by the most recent quarter, Microsoft is on track to collect roughly $40 billion a year from OpenAI going forward, though quarterly totals can shift.

Microsoft did not break out how much of the $10 billion came from revenue sharing versus Azure, the cloud computing platform OpenAI rents to train and run its AI models. TechCrunch, which first reported the filing, said it had asked Microsoft for that breakdown. A separate TechCrunch report from November 2025, based on leaked documents, found Microsoft had received $865.8 million in net revenue-sharing payments from OpenAI over the first nine months of that year.

OpenAI is reported to share 20% of its revenue with Microsoft, a term tied to the more than $13 billion Microsoft has invested in the startup. Neither company has confirmed that figure publicly. Under an agreement reached in April 2026, OpenAI must keep sharing revenue with Microsoft through 2030, subject to a cap, even though OpenAI is now free to buy cloud computing from Microsoft’s rivals.

Receivables climb too

The filing also showed Microsoft held $7.2 billion in outstanding receivables from OpenAI as of September 30, up from $6 billion three months earlier. Receivables are money already owed for past transactions, not new revenue, so the figure reflects how much OpenAI still has to pay Microsoft rather than additional income.

The two companies loosened their once-exclusive partnership in October 2025, when Microsoft gave up its exclusive claim on OpenAI’s business so the startup could work with other cloud providers. In return, OpenAI agreed to buy an additional $250 billion in Azure services under that October 2025 deal.

Microsoft’s ownership stake in OpenAI has also slipped, falling to about 24% in September from roughly 25% in June and 27% after the October 2025 recapitalization, a restructuring of OpenAI’s ownership. Microsoft did not say what caused the additional dilution.

The next test of the relationship comes when Microsoft reports how much of future OpenAI revenue flows through Azure versus direct payments, a split neither company has yet disclosed.