Following rumors of using OpenAI’s writing technology in its productivity applications, Microsoft is apparently now preparing to invest $10 billion into the AI company, which produces the popular text tool, ChatGPT.
The investment is part of a larger funding round that involves other investors, sources close to the story told Semaphor on Tuesday. It’s currently unclear if the deal has been finalized.
Documents that were allegedly sent to potential investors indicate that a close of the investment round was set for the end of 2022. It’s unknown if the deal was completed, or has gone into 2023.
Under the purported terms of the deal, the acquisition would value OpenAI at approximately $29 billion. Microsoft would receive 75 percent of OpenAI’s profits until it recoups the investment, before reverting to a structure where Microsoft owns 49 percent of OpenAI.
Microsoft has previously invested in OpenAI, and pumped $1 billion into the company in 2019 to build technologies that could work in its products.
It is thought that Microsoft wants to incorporate AI tech from OpenAI into apps, providing ways for users to write stretches of text and emails for Word and Outlook, based on smaller prompts.
It’s also been suggested that by using per-client machine learning with enhanced privacy, the AI models could pick up on language used by the user or an entire company, which could improve suggested texts.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via AppleInsider and Semaphore