The Microsoft-openai Saga Continues As Copilot Enterprise Client Switches To Chatgpt

Every day, there’s a new episode of the Microsoft-OpenAI drama. 

In the latest installment of the tech saga, it’s being reported that biotech company Amgen has expanded its use of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, citing employee preference over Microsoft’s offering. This comes just a little over a year since the company signed up for a Microsoft Copilot subscription for 20K of its employees. 

It now looks like OpenAI—which has received around $14B from Microsoft so far—is eating the lunch of its biggest investor.

Copilot’s 20M weekly users pales in comparison to OpenAI’s 500M as of March. The latter’s suite of ChatGPT products has also seen 3M paying business users during the same month, up from 2M in February.

Why People Prefer ChatGPT vs. Copilot

While Microsoft will invest $80B in AI this year, it seems it still has a long way to go before becoming ‘THE’ AI platform. In fact, when you talk to someone about AI, chances are that they think you’re referring to ChatGPT. 

It may be anecdotal, but it does suggest that Microsoft has unwittingly built Copilot to be the grande to OpenAI’s venti. In other words, Satya Nadella’s organization created a product that was perceived as offering less value, so people chose OpenAI instead, believing it would give them more bang for their buck.

Part of the problem could be the fact that Copilot is a little too associated with Microsoft. This is good since Microsoft has a significant foothold in the enterprise market. Earlier this month, the company announced that 100K Barclays employees will begin using its Microsoft 365 product.

However, the close association between the AI and the company behind it might lead people to think that it only works on Windows and other Microsoft products.

This, of course, is incorrect because it’s available on any browser, as well as on Android and iOS. This confusion could be the reason why, for example, ChatGPT has over 500M downloads compared to Copilot’s 10M at the Google Play Store.

Then there’s OpenAI’s first-mover advantage, largely thanks to Microsoft’s investment. Workers have been using ChatGPT at home and in the office well before Microsoft came in and introduced Copilot on their work computers. It even led a Samsung employee to accidentally leak sensitive data to ChatGPT, causing the company to ban its use.

While some may argue that OpenAI’s first-mover advantage is no longer enough with the availability of other alternatives, it still has a significant lead, especially against Microsoft. 

Then there’s Microsoft’s internal struggles, too. There have been reports of infighting and its continued struggles to deliver a product that can compete not only with OpenAI but also with the other players that have emerged more recently, including Anthropic and Google.

There’s No End in Sight to the Drama

Because of all the drama surrounding the two companies, Microsoft won’t let go of OpenAI that easily. Aside from being a major investor, the former has rights to OpenAI IP, which it uses in Copilot. 

This puts the Sam Altman-led organization in a bind. It knows it needs to expand, so it partnered with rival Google to provide much-needed computing power. However, as a nonprofit, OpenAI must go public and become a for-profit company to expand further. This would require renegotiating its commercial agreement with Microsoft.

The two have yet to come to an agreement, particularly regarding how much equity Microsoft will receive when OpenAI goes public. The Redmond-based company is said to be willing to accept a smaller equity, granted that OpenAI will continue giving it access to future technologies beyond the expiry of their contract in 2030.

It remains to be seen how this all plays out. Given how complicated the companies’ relationship has become since 2019, there seems to be no fairytale ending in sight for now. 

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