OpenAI to ditch AGI clause to unlock investment from Microsoft

OpenAI is in discussions to ditch a provision that shuts Microsoft out of its most advanced models when the start-up achieves "artificial general intelligence", as it seeks to unlock billions of dollars of future investment, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

As per the current terms, when OpenAI creates AGI - defined as a "highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work" - Microsoft's access to such a technology would be void, the report said.

The ChatGPT-maker is exploring removing the condition from its corporate structure, enabling Microsoft to continue investing in and accessing all OpenAI technology after AGI is achieved, the FT reported.

Microsoft and OpenAI did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

It is worth noting that the report comes almost a day after the company announced ChatGPT Pro, which is its $200 subscription that offers access to the company's most advanced generative AI-based models including the OpenAI o1, o1-Mini, GPT-4o and Advanced Voice to the paying subscribers, which includes Teams, Plus and Enterprise subscriptions.

In addition to this, the company also announced updates to the OpenAI 01, which bring advanced reasoning capabilities through a model selector to the company's Enterprise and Education users. Apart from better reasoning capabilities, the company's OpenAI o1 model also offers better problem-solving capabilities, the ability to upload images and get more tailored responses.

Additionally, the company announced that it is also working on adding support for tools such as web browsing and file upload into OpenAI o1 in ChatGPT.

"We're also working on making `o1` available in the API with support for function calling, developer messages, Structured Outputs, and vision—stay tuned," OpenAI wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

This is expected to be followed by 11 more days of both major and smaller announcements by the company in the coming days.