OpenAI has started selling ChatGPT Enterprise where a lot of its would-be customers already do their buying. On 9 November the company listed the product on the AWS Marketplace, which lets an organisation purchase the subscription through its existing Amazon Web Services arrangements instead of signing a separate contract with OpenAI.
The practical effect is about procurement, not capability. AWS customers who buy this way get the same ChatGPT Enterprise features as anyone buying direct, but the spending can be drawn against commitments they have already made to Amazon. For a large company, that is the difference between a quick line item and a months-long vendor review. The listing sits alongside OpenAI's models, which are already available inside Amazon Bedrock, so Amazon now offers both the raw models and the finished workplace app.
Another brick out of the Microsoft wall
A year ago, pairing OpenAI with Amazon would have read as a contradiction. OpenAI's compute and its commercial fortunes were tied closely to Microsoft, and Amazon was backing a rival lab. That arrangement has loosened. Last month OpenAI said it would bring its models to Google Cloud, a move toward running across several providers rather than leaning on one, and it has kept raising money to pay for the infrastructure, including an $11 billion first close that came in below its target.
The cloud providers are doing their own version of the same hedging. Oracle has thrown its cloud open to rival AI chips, and the marketplace listing is Amazon's way of making sure the most-asked-for AI product is easy to buy on its platform, whoever built it. None of these companies wants to be the one that made its customers go somewhere else for the tool everybody wants.
For the businesses actually signing the cheques, the shift is mundane and welcome. The fewer new contracts a finance team has to approve, the sooner the software gets into the hands of the people asking for it.
Sources
- i. openai.com
- ii. www.cnbc.com
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