OpenAI is everywhere

Customers Bank CEO Sam Sidhu stunned analysts about a half hour into his earnings conference call on Friday when he revealed he had thus far been using an AI clone to deliver his remarks.

He wasn’t just playing a creepy prank experimenting, there was a larger point: His company is doubling down on embracing AI. Sidhu put his money where his robot mouth was and inked a deal with OpenAI to help automate Customers Bank lending, CNBC reported today.

But that’s far from the only deal that put Sam Altman’s buzzy startup in the headlines recently.

Can you hear me now?

Qualcomm and OpenAI will reportedly be teaming up to make new and improved smartphone processing chips that will go into mass production by 2028, according to TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Manufacturing its own phone chips brings OpenAI one step closer to making its own smartphone, Kuo wrote on social media. He foresees the AI company using a phone to draw in more ChatGPT users, and that agents might replace apps. That’s bad news for Apple, which declined 1.27% today after the announcement, given the iPhone maker may have some new competition on the horizon.

But it was a win for Qualcomm, which rose 0.98% on the news. Shares are still down 19.91% in the last six months, but shareholders are hoping that Qualcomm might finally be digging itself out of its rut after a rough earnings report earlier this year tanked the stock.

Old frenemies

Meanwhile, Microsoft and OpenAI announced they have rewritten the terms of their partnership, which has been one of the key alliances in Silicon Valley since they first teamed up in 2019. But over the past year, their pact has eroded as OpenAI decided it wanted to work with other big tech names. The biggest changes to the agreement include:

• Microsoft’s license to OpenAI’s intellectual property won’t be exclusive anymore, meaning OpenAI’s products can now be used by other big tech giants like Amazon and Google.
• Microsoft will no longer pay OpenAI any revenue share, while OpenAI will keep paying Microsoft 20% revenue share until 2030, but subject to a new cap that depends on OpenAI’s technological advances.

While this may sound like bad news for Microsoft, there’s finally some certainty after so much gossip about its fractured relationship with OpenAI. “It's good to get this ongoing partnership limbo now in the rear view mirror, as we view this as a net positive for Microsoft as the company locks in a 6-year IP control over OpenAI technology and maintains a significant share of OpenAI,” explained Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a note today.

What’s next: OpenAI is set to remain firmly in the spotlight, as Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman and his startup heads to trial. Jury selection begins today.—LB