--- title: "Microsoft is quietly shopping for an OpenAI replacement" url: https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-is-quietly-shopping-for-an-openai-replacement-7yzydmfql source_url: https://thenextweb.com/news/microsoft-startup-deals-life-after-openai type: article source: "The Next Web" published: 2026-05-14T08:34:17.236Z updated: 2026-05-14T08:34:35.806Z tags: ["microsoft", "business", "llm", "openai", "ai-coding"] reading_time: 4 upvotes: 6 comments: 1 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Microsoft is quietly shopping for an OpenAI replacement **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 4 min read · 6 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary Microsoft is quietly scouting AI startups for acquisition or strategic partnerships as it builds independence from OpenAI. After a failed bid for Cursor (blocked by GitHub Copilot antitrust concerns), Microsoft is now in talks with Inception, a Stanford-spun startup building diffusion-based language models. This follows a major contract amendment on April 27 that ended Microsoft's exclusive OpenAI licence. The broader strategy is led by Mustafa Suleyman's MAI Superintelligence team, which already shipped three foundation models and targets a frontier LLM by 2027. Microsoft retains a 27% OpenAI stake and IP licence through 2032, but is clearly hedging its bets on AI infrastructure and developer tooling. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@maqsoodahmed** · 1 upvotes > Smart move by **MS** to not rely only on OpenAI. Using **Azure** to test multiple models is the safest play here. Do you think **MAI** will stay internal or go _public_ like **Llama**? ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Microsoft swaps in its own AI over OpenAI in some apps](https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-swaps-in-its-own-ai-over-openai-in-some-apps-ru7dnzqi7) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#microsoft](https://daily.dev/tags/microsoft), [#business](https://daily.dev/tags/business), [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#openai](https://daily.dev/tags/openai), [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-is-quietly-shopping-for-an-openai-replacement-7yzydmfql)