OpenAI lands on AWS one day after Microsoft deal restructuring
Key Points
- One day after Microsoft and OpenAI ended their exclusivity agreement, AWS rolled out three new OpenAI services on its Bedrock platform.
- The new offerings launch as a limited preview and include OpenAI models like the now-available GPT-5.4, Codex, and "Bedrock Managed Agents," which pair OpenAI's models with AWS infrastructure.
- The move follows a February partnership between Amazon and OpenAI worth up to $50 billion, a deal that initially raised legal concerns at Microsoft over the exclusivity rights that have now been lifted.
Microsoft and OpenAI dissolve their exclusivity deal. One day later, AWS rolls out three new OpenAI offerings on its Bedrock platform, including a jointly built agent service.
A day after Microsoft and OpenAI restructured their partnership and ended Azure's exclusive distribution rights for OpenAI models, AWS and OpenAI used a San Francisco event to unveil three new offerings on Amazon Bedrock. All three launch as limited previews: OpenAI models on Bedrock, Codex on Bedrock, and Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents, powered by OpenAI.
GPT-5.4 is available now, and GPT-5.5 should follow within weeks, according to AWS CEO Matt Garman. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared only via video, as he was in court in Oakland for the Musk trial at the same time.
The centerpiece of the announcement is Bedrock Managed Agents, the enterprise agent platform that was described as a "stateful runtime environment" when the partnership was announced in February. The service pairs OpenAI's frontier models and agent harness with AWS infrastructure. Each agent gets its own identity, logs every action, and runs inside the customer's environment, with all inference handled through Bedrock. Managed Agents works alongside Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, which provides the default compute environment.
Microsoft drops exclusivity but keeps its stake
OpenAI and Amazon announced their strategic partnership back in February, with an investment of up to $50 billion and an AWS compute commitment of $100 billion. At the time, Microsoft and OpenAI insisted in a joint statement that their own partnership wouldn't change in any way. In March, The Information reported that Microsoft executives were worried the planned AWS product violated the exclusivity deal.
According to the Financial Times, Microsoft had even considered taking legal action against Amazon and OpenAI. The revised contract puts that conflict to rest.
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