Microsoft and OpenAI have dominated the news, thanks to the announcement that Microsoft is extending its partnership with OpenAI by making a multibillion-dollar investment. The news sparked conversations about the increased interest in AI tools by curious users, Big Tech, and investors. Another reason for the partnership’s coverage is the viral success of OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT, which has gone viral since it was released in November. The possibilities of integrations between Microsoft and OpenAI are seemingly endless, so let’s dive into the details of the partnership, the possible integrations, and the implications for investing in AI.
Microsoft is entering the third phase of its longtime partnership with OpenAI by making a multibillion-dollar investment into the DALL-E 2 and ChatGPT maker. Microsoft first invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019 and 2021. In January, rumors spread that Microsoft was gearing up to invest a further $10 billion into OpenAI. More rumors swirled that Microsoft would receive 75% of OpenAI’s profits and, once the investment is paid back in full, assume a 49% stake in the company. Microsoft’s investment would propel OpenAI’s value up to $29 billion. Since these rumors, a transaction has happened but Microsoft has yet to confirm the exact amount of their investment or any information about the percentage of ownership they could own. This investment highlights Microsoft’s commitment to driving innovation and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with AI. It is expected to impact the future of AI technology significantly.
The company will use the new multibillion-dollar infusion to supercharge the development and deployment of the company’s specialized supercomputing systems to fast-track AI research, fund the deployment of OpenAI’s products across the Microsoft ecosystem, and power Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service. In the announcement, Microsoft excitedly revealed that the integration would give “developers and organizations across industries… access to the best AI infrastructure, models, and toolchain with Azure to build and run their applications.” In addition, Microsoft will be the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI, a big win for Microsoft as they continue to seek out large-scale customers using high-margin computing services.
OpenAI’s mission statement says that the company intends to build AI that can do anything a human brain can and more with safe, helpful, and beneficial AI products. Two of OpenAI’s most popular products are the image generator DALL-E 2 and ChatGPT. DALL-E 2 lets users generate images by inputting criteria like the subject of the painting and the style they want it in. ChatGPT is OpenAI’s viral chatbot that can do everything from writing poems, and answering complex physics questions, to composing essays in the style of Shakespeare, and is built off its incredibly successful GPT-3 foundational models..
Soon after the partnership was announced, chatter about which tools from OpenAI that Microsoft might integrate into its products. One of the most exciting possibilities of the extended partnership is the potential for a ChatGPT-powered Bing. Bing is Microsoft’s search engine, and integrating ChatGPT could propel Bing way past the Google search engine’s popularity. Users of ChatGPT can ask questions like “How do I keep my Fiddlehead fern alive” and get detailed, direct answers without having to wade through ads and links like they would on Google- leaving some to speculate that ChatGPT could be a viable replacement for Google search. Microsoft’s integration between Bing and ChatGPT could draw more users looking for straightforward answers to Bing and away from Google. ChatGPT’s viral moment also prompted some to speculate that people’s familiarity with the bot could pull users away from Google.
Another intriguing element to Microsoft’s push to generate and invest in AI-driven products is the recent layoffs enacted by the software giant. Microsoft recently announced massive layoffs totalling 10,000 people, which shocked the tech world. The layoffs at Microsoft, coupled with the historic investment in OpenAI, signaled a pivotal shift in the company’s strategy and the clearest signal yet that AI is indeed the future of tech. However, while Microsoft courts OpenAI, Google is reportedly freaking out about the surging capabilities of AI tools from companies like OpenAI. In the announcement Google made announcing plans to lay off 12,000 employees, the company also announced it intends to focus efforts on building its AI offerings. According to reporting from the New York Times, Google plans to announce more than 20 AI-powered projects in 2023. To do so, Google brought back founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to help the company revamp its approach to AI, agreeing to focus on adding AI-powered chatbot features to Google’s search engine and pushing company leaders to go all in on AI. The two may be jockeying for dominance with competing AI solutions in the very near future.
While Google’s approach is to invest in in-house AI products, Microsoft’s investment into OpenAI will allow them to benefit from OpenAI’s innovations without diverting internal resources. Their investment signals a new era of AI investing as tech companies increasingly turn towards AI solutions. I asked ChatGPT why I should invest in AI. The chatbot provided four reasons:
As the tech industry enters a state of contraction, investing in AI solutions makes the most sense for companies looking to save money and improve productivity. Companies like Microsoft and Google are increasingly looking to automate more and increase productivity with AI solutions. The opportunity to invest in and reap the rewards from AI is only expected to grow in 2023 as AI tools get better and companies look to do more with less personnel and with more ease than ever before. Microsoft’s investment into OpenAI and Google’s commitment to building out its AI offerings demonstrate the increasing necessity of investing in and exploring AI tools that allow big and small companies to do more with less.
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