Microsoft booked $10 billion in revenue from its commercial arrangements with OpenAI in the quarter that ended September 30, according to TechCrunch reporting on a quarterly report the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, October 28. That figure is about 11% of Microsoft's $92.3 billion in total quarterly revenue. It is also the first time the company has broken out OpenAI-related revenue this way, which gives investors a first hard number on how much of the business now runs through the relationship.
The SEC filing confirms the investment-gain line items and the certification date. The $10 billion figure and the stake percentages come from secondary coverage of the filing, including ForkLog and daily.dev, which repeat the same numbers.
What the filing says about OpenAI revenue
The $10 billion combines revenue-sharing payments with other business between the two companies. That other business includes OpenAI's use of Azure to train and run its models, according to GeekWire. Microsoft did not break out how much came from each category, so outside readers cannot tell how much is tied to the revenue-share deal and how much is compute.
For the full fiscal year, Microsoft's OpenAI-related revenue totaled $24.1 billion in fiscal 2026, which ended June 30. Spread across four quarters, that is roughly $6 billion a quarter. The September quarter's $10 billion is a large jump from that pace.
Some coverage multiplies the latest quarter by four to reach a $40 billion annualized run rate. That is arithmetic on a single quarter, not a company forecast, and it should not be read as guidance.
The receivable also moved. OpenAI owed Microsoft $7.2 billion at quarter-end, up from $6.0 billion in June. That is money Microsoft has yet to collect, and a bigger balance means the two companies' finances are more tightly tied than they were three months earlier.
Microsoft has also paid $12.0 billion of the $13.0 billion it committed to invest in OpenAI. That leaves about $1.0 billion of the commitment still to be funded.
How the $10 billion compares with Microsoft's other businesses
In the same quarter, Xbox brought in $5.4 billion and search and advertising brought in $6.6 billion. The OpenAI figure is larger than either one on its own, which is the comparison GeekWire's headline draws.
Azure is the more complicated comparison. Azure revenue rose 48% to $33.2 billion, beating Wall Street expectations and the company's own forecast of 44% to 45% growth. The filing does not say how much of that growth came from OpenAI.
The overlap matters because Microsoft sells OpenAI's models to business customers through Azure OpenAI Service, and those models became the foundation for its Copilot products. Cloud revenue and AI model revenue are therefore tangled together. Analysts will need to pull them apart before they can judge either business on its own.
Why Microsoft had to report the figures
This disclosure was not a strategy announcement. It follows from accounting rules. Because Microsoft's stake makes OpenAI a related party, the company must report these figures, and this quarter is the first in which it broke out OpenAI revenue.
The history helps explain why the relationship is so close. Microsoft was an early backer of OpenAI, and ChatGPT ran on Azure when it launched in late 2022.
The coverage I reviewed includes no on-the-record comment from Microsoft or OpenAI about these numbers. That leaves the filing as the main official record, and the filing alone does not explain why the stake changed or how the revenue splits.
OpenAI's compute sourcing is also broader than Azure. OpenAI reportedly plans to buy Google's TPU chips, in a deal that remains unconfirmed, as covered in our report on the reported OpenAI-Google chip talks.
Microsoft OpenAI stake dilution and the accounting swing
Microsoft's stake was about 24% at quarter-end. That is down from about 25% in June and about 27% after OpenAI's October 2025 restructuring. Microsoft did not disclose what caused the dilution, and the coverage does not say whether new investors, new share issuance or another change drove it.
The accounting picture changed sharply too. The 10-Q shows $272 million in net gains on OpenAI investments in the September 2026 quarter. In the year-earlier quarter, the same line showed $4.1 billion in net losses.
That swing can move reported net income a great deal, but accounting gains and losses are not the same as cash changing hands. Readers should treat the investment line as a separate story from the $10 billion in revenue.
This is not the first quarter in which OpenAI accounting has moved Microsoft's results. The company's 10-Q for the March 2026 quarter already showed OpenAI investment gains that boosted net income, according to the March filing. The pattern now shows up in at least two recent quarters.
The sources I reviewed do not report a Microsoft stock-price reaction or an analyst consensus response, so this article does not describe one.
What the numbers mean for investors and Azure customers
For shareholders, the filing turns a vague worry into a number. Roughly $10 billion out of $92.3 billion is a clear measure of how much quarterly revenue depends on one partner, and investors can now use it to judge concentration risk.
Business customers face a different question. Companies that buy Azure, Azure OpenAI Service or Microsoft 365 Copilot are tied to the same partnership. If the terms change, pricing and product roadmaps could change with them.
Pricing is also moving on the model side. OpenAI's GPT-6.1 Terra cut API prices in half for computer-use agents, which gives enterprise buyers a fresh benchmark when they review their current Azure OpenAI spending.
Consumers have no direct action to take based on this filing.
Practical steps for reading the filing and checking contracts
Investors who want to verify the numbers can start with the primary document.
- Open Microsoft's 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 on SEC EDGAR.
- Read the related-party disclosures and the OpenAI investment sections in the notes.
- Compare the $272 million gain with the investment line in the March 2026 10-Q.
- Check whether the filing or later disclosures give a reason for the drop from about 25% to about 24%.
IT buyers and procurement teams have a shorter list.
- Review Azure OpenAI Service agreements for clauses tied to the Microsoft and OpenAI partnership, including model availability and pricing terms.
- Ask your Microsoft account team how a change in the OpenAI relationship would affect your pricing and support.
- Record the model versions and per-token prices you pay now so you can measure any future change.
What to watch next
The next quarterly report will test whether OpenAI revenue holds near the $10 billion pace or falls back toward the roughly $6 billion quarterly average of the past year. Investors should also watch whether Microsoft splits the revenue between revenue sharing and compute, because the company has not done so yet.
The $7.2 billion owed by OpenAI is another number to track. So is the remaining $1.0 billion of Microsoft's $13.0 billion commitment, and whether the stake keeps shrinking.
The figures are now on the record. The next filing will show whether this quarter was an outlier or the start of a new baseline.




