OpenAI Starts Selling ChatGPT at a Discount, Hurting Microsoft

OpenAI has started discounting enterprise subscriptions to its ChatGPT app when customers agree to spend money on additional AI products, according to an OpenAI spokesperson and two executives at large firms that have spoken to the startup in recent weeks.

The move has frustrated salespeople at Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest business partner, which sells competing apps and models and doesn’t typically discount them as much.

The discounting suggests OpenAI’s pricing power may not be as strong with enterprises as it is with consumers, who make up the vast majority of its revenue. It also may reflect how AI firms are trying to pass some savings to large customers after finding ways to lower the cost of running models in data centers.