OpenAI acknowledges the limitations of its long-standing partnership with Microsoft and views Amazon Web Services as a critical gateway for breaking into the enterprise market.
According to a memo obtained by CNBC, OpenAI Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser sent an internal letter to all employees last Sunday, explicitly stating that the partnership with Microsoft is constraining business expansion with enterprise clients.
She wrote: &#34;Our partnership with Microsoft is the cornerstone of our success, but it also limits our ability to connect with enterprise customers—for many of them, they are on the Amazon Bedrock cloud platform.&#34;
Dresser also revealed that since OpenAI announced its strategic partnership with Amazon at the end of February this year, inbound demand from enterprise customers has been, &#34;frankly speaking, shocking.&#34;
<h2>Cracks in the Microsoft Relationship, Amazon Emerges as New Pivot Point</h2>
Although both OpenAI and Microsoft still publicly characterize their relationship as a &#34;core strategic partnership,&#34; internal cracks are increasingly surfacing. In mid-2024, Microsoft listed OpenAI as a competitor in its annual report, alongside tech giants such as Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta.
Meanwhile, OpenAI has gradually diversified its computing power needs among other cloud service providers including CoreWeave, Google, and Oracle; Microsoft has begun publicly testing its own AI models to strengthen its consumer-facing Copilot assistant.
In this context, Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides enterprise customers with access to mainstream AI models, including those from OpenAI, through its Bedrock platform, offering OpenAI a new channel to reach a broader range of enterprise users.
Dresser described the surge in enterprise demand for this platform in the memo as a &#34;shocking&#34; growth trend since the partnership was announced, positioning this collaboration explicitly as a core driver for business expansion.
<h2>Enterprise Market Battle: Breaking Out Under Pressure from Claude</h2>
The competitive landscape in the enterprise market is the direct backdrop for Dresser issuing this memo. At the HumanX AI Industry Conference held in San Francisco last week, the market momentum of Anthropic's Claude model became the hottest topic.
Arvind Jain, CEO of enterprise AI startup Glean, described this phenomenon at the conference as &#34;Claude mania,&#34; stating it &#34;has become a religion; that is the extent of this mania.&#34;
Facing this pressure, Dresser took the initiative in the memo, stating that Anthropic's strategy is built on &#34;fear, restriction, and the notion that only a few elites should control AI,&#34; and pointing out that it committed a strategic error by &#34;failing to secure sufficient computing power.&#34;
In an investor memo released last Thursday, OpenAI stated that Anthropic is &#34;operating on a significantly smaller curve,&#34; while OpenAI's own computing power ramp-up is &#34;substantially ahead and the gap is widening.&#34;
<h2>IPO Prospects Drive Accelerated Commercial Layout</h2>
Both OpenAI and Anthropic are actively preparing for an IPO potentially as early as this year, making performance in the enterprise market crucial for their valuation narratives. Large-scale enterprise investment in AI has significantly depressed valuations of public software companies, casting them as increasingly vulnerable competitors.
OpenAI's latest round of financing completed at the end of March valued the company at over $850 billion, while Anthropic completed a financing round one month ago valued at $380 billion.
On the commercial execution front, OpenAI hired Dresser as Chief Revenue Officer in December last year; she previously served as CEO of Slack and had a long tenure at Salesforce. Recently, Dresser further expanded her responsibilities, taking over business affairs previously managed by Brad Lightcap, who has moved to a new role in &#34;special projects.&#34;
At the end of the memo, Dresser wrote that the market can sometimes be &#34;noisy, volatile, and distracting,&#34; encouraging employees to focus on deep engagement with customers. Her conclusion was concise and powerful: &#34;The market is right in front of us; let's take action.&#34;

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OpenAI's Chief Revenue Officer pointed out in an internal memo that the partnership with Microsoft is constraining enterprise customer expansion, while inbound demand from enterprises since the partnership with Amazon AWS was announced in February has been "shocking." At the same time, she noted that Anthropic made a strategic error by "failing to secure sufficient computing power," and that OpenAI's computing power ramp-up is "substantially ahead and the gap is widening."

- OpenAI acknowledges limitations in its long-term partnership with Microsoft and views Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a vital channel for enterprise market expansion.  
- The internal memo, sent by Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser, highlighted that the collaboration with Microsoft restricts OpenAI's connections with enterprise clients, many of whom operate on AWS's Bedrock platform.  
- Since announcing their strategic partnership with Amazon, Dresser noted a "remarkably shocking" increase in inbound enterprise client demand, positioning this collaboration as a core driver for business growth.

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OpenAI Internal Memo Exposed: Microsoft "Restricts" Our Commercial Expansion, Amazon Is the New Path