Aerial view of Microsoft's Redmond campus under redevelopment, with cranes and buildings under construction

· Translated from the Spanish original · 中文 · 日本語

Earnings

Microsoft reports US$10 billion in revenue from OpenAI in a single quarter

Its quarterly SEC filing also shows OpenAI owed it US$7.2 billion at the end of September, up from US$6 billion in June.

What happened

  • Microsoft filed its 10-Q quarterly report with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on 28 October 2026, covering the quarter ended 30 September.
  • In a related-party note, the company said it recorded US$10 billion in revenue from commercial arrangements with OpenAI, including revenue-sharing payments.
  • Accounts receivable from OpenAI reached US$7.2 billion at 30 September, up from US$6 billion at 30 June.
  • The filing says Microsoft holds an approximate 24% interest in OpenAI on an as-converted basis, and funding commitments of US$13 billion, of which US$12 billion has been funded.

Why it matters

  • Microsoft discloses the figure because OpenAI is a related party under accounting standard ASC 850. It is one of the few public windows into the economic relationship between the two companies.
  • According to TechCrunch, the US$10 billion equals about 11% of Microsoft’s total quarterly revenue of US$92.3 billion.
  • The outlet estimates that, at that pace, Microsoft would take in about US$40 billion a year from OpenAI arrangements. For the whole of fiscal 2026 the figure was US$24.1 billion.
  • The filing does not split how much comes from revenue sharing and how much from Azure cloud services.

The number

US$7.2 billion. That is what OpenAI owed Microsoft at the end of September for earlier transactions. It is not additional revenue.

Context

The relationship between the two companies has changed over the past year. In October 2025 Microsoft gave up exclusivity over OpenAI so it could work with other cloud providers. In exchange, OpenAI committed to buy an additional US$250 billion of Azure services, according to TechCrunch. An April 2026 agreement requires OpenAI to keep sharing revenue with Microsoft until 2030, subject to a cap.

Both now compete for the same buyers of AI software. Mamífero reported how Microsoft rebuilt Copilot with a usage-billed agent and how OpenAI launched agents with its own engine at DevDay. The question of who pays the AI bill has also reached Google, which made Gemini pricing more flexible. At the other end of the chain, companies such as Snorkel raise money by selling data to the labs.

What’s next

  • TechCrunch asked Microsoft for the split between revenue sharing and Azure services. The company had not replied when the piece was published.
  • The next quarterly report, at the end of January, will show whether the US$10 billion pace holds.
  • The trend in receivables will be a signal of OpenAI’s ability to pay for its computing commitments.

Bottom line

The figure confirms that, for Microsoft, OpenAI is a revenue source the size of a business of its own. It also shows a debt that grows quarter after quarter. The two companies compete in the market and remain tied together in the accounts.

Sources

  • Microsoft, Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 September 2026, filed with the SEC on 28 October 2026: sec.gov
  • TechCrunch, “Microsoft recorded $10 billion in revenue from OpenAI”, 28 October 2026: techcrunch.com
  • Cover image: Atomic Taco, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Edited by Rodrigo Cornejo. How we select and verify: who writes these notes.

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