Microsoft Plans AI Service With Databricks That Could Hurt OpenAI

Microsoft has hitched its wagon to OpenAI when it comes to selling artificial intelligence that can understand language and write emails, meeting summaries and slide decks. Now Microsoft has found a second horse to ride in the AI race: Databricks, which has positioned itself as a kind of anti-OpenAI.

Microsoft plans to start selling a new version of Databricks’ software that helps customers make AI apps for their businesses, according to three people with direct knowledge of the plans. The Databricks software, which Microsoft would sell through its Azure cloud-server unit, helps companies make AI models from scratch or repurpose open-source models as an alternative to licensing OpenAI’s proprietary ones.