Eli's AI Daily 28 April 2026

Five things that actually matter in AI today. With a take.

Good morning. Today OpenAI and Microsoft quietly redrew the deal that built the AI industry. A courtroom in Oakland heard its first opening arguments. GitHub told millions of developers their pricing is changing. Meta and Microsoft handed out 16,000 redundancy notices. And AWS and OpenAI hosted a live event to tell the world that agentic AI is no longer coming. It is here. Quite a Tuesday.

Story 01

Microsoft and OpenAI tear up their original deal

The partnership that built the generative AI era just got quietly dismantled and rebuilt from scratch.

What happened

Microsoft and OpenAI announced a sweeping overhaul of their partnership today, removing the exclusivity that has defined their relationship since 2019. Under the new terms, OpenAI can now sell its models through any cloud provider, including Amazon and Google. Microsoft retains non-exclusive access to OpenAI's intellectual property through 2032, but no longer pays a revenue share to OpenAI. OpenAI will continue paying Microsoft 20% of its revenue through 2030, subject to a total cap. Crucially, the AGI clause is gone. In the original deal, Microsoft's rights were tied to whether OpenAI ever declared artificial general intelligence had been reached. That language has been stripped entirely. Fixed timelines replace philosophical tripwires.

Why it matters

This is one of the most consequential restructurings in tech history, and it was announced with the energy of a press release about updated terms and conditions. The proximate cause was a $50 billion investment from Amazon in February, which made OpenAI's single-cloud constraint commercially untenable. But the deeper story is about an IPO. OpenAI is expected to go public later this year. Every clause in the old deal was a risk disclosure. The AGI tripwire, the exclusivity, the revenue share flows. Stripping those out makes the prospectus considerably cleaner. What Microsoft gets in return is long-term IP access and clarity. What OpenAI gets is freedom. Whether that freedom is worth more than the infrastructure certainty it replaces is the question investors will be asking for months.

The question nobody's asking

The AGI clause gave Microsoft a philosophical veto over OpenAI's most important milestone. Removing it means nobody outside OpenAI's boardroom now decides what counts as AGI. Is that a feature or a bug?

Story 02

Musk v. Altman: opening arguments begin this morning

Jury selection wrapped yesterday. Today the courtroom in Oakland hears the actual case for the first time.

What happened

Opening statements began this morning in the federal trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI. Nine jurors were seated yesterday after a selection process in which Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers emphasised the case is about disputed facts, not technical expertise. Musk spent Monday posting on X, calling Altman "Scam Altman" and asking publicly whether it should be legal to "loot a charity." OpenAI responded calling the lawsuit a "baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor." The trial runs Monday to Thursday each week, with evidence expected to conclude by 21 May. The judge, not the jury, makes the final call on any remedies.

Why it matters

Strip away the personality conflict and this trial is asking whether a nonprofit organisation can convert itself into an $852 billion for-profit enterprise and call that mission accomplished. Greg Brockman's unsealed diary entry, where he wrote that converting the company without Musk would be "pretty morally bankrupt," is now in front of a jury. Prediction markets currently put Musk's odds at around 45%. OpenAI's legal team argues the case is pure jealousy. Musk's team has a diary. The trial also lands on the same day OpenAI announced its Microsoft deal restructure, which is the kind of timing that trial lawyers and PR teams usually try very hard to avoid.

The question nobody's asking

Musk is no longer seeking damages for himself. He wants any award sent to OpenAI's nonprofit. If he wins, he hands OpenAI's charity a windfall. Does that make him a crusader or a chaos agent?

Story 03

GitHub Copilot is scrapping flat-rate billing. You now pay per token.

From 1 June, every Copilot plan moves to usage-based billing. Developers are not pleased.

What happened

GitHub announced today that all Copilot plans will transition to token-based billing on 1 June 2026. Premium request allowances are being replaced with monthly GitHub AI Credits, consumed based on token usage across input, output, and cached tokens. Base subscription prices are not changing. Code completions and Next Edit suggestions remain unlimited. But anything more intensive, including agentic workflows, chat, and code review, will now draw down credits at rates tied to the model used. Annual plans are being retired entirely. GitHub is also pausing new sign-ups for Copilot Pro, Pro+, and Student plans while it implements the new infrastructure.

Why it matters

This is the moment AI coding tools stop feeling free. The flat-rate subscription model was always a loss leader designed to build adoption. Copilot is no longer a year-old coding assistant. It now powers agentic workflows that can run for hours, burn through enormous amounts of compute, and cost GitHub far more than a $10 monthly subscription covers. Usage-based billing is the honest model. The problem is that developers cannot easily predict token consumption in agentic workflows, which means monthly costs become a variable they cannot budget for. The phrase already circulating in developer forums: "you will get less, but pay the same price." That perception, true or not, is the reputational risk GitHub is taking on.

The question nobody's asking

GitHub is owned by Microsoft. Microsoft just restructured its OpenAI deal to remove exclusivity. Copilot now bills by token, using OpenAI models, on a Microsoft platform. How much of that token spend ultimately flows back to OpenAI?

Story 04

Meta and Microsoft hand out 16,000 redundancy notices. AI is the stated reason.

Two of the world's most valuable companies are cutting staff while committing hundreds of billions to AI.

What happened

Meta announced it is cutting approximately 8,000 employees, around 10% of its workforce, with notices going out from 20 May. Microsoft separately announced buyouts for around 8,750 employees, the first such programme in the company's 51-year history. Both companies cited AI-driven efficiency as central to the decision. Meta is spending between $115 and $135 billion on AI infrastructure this year. Microsoft is on track for close to $146 billion. Combined, they are eliminating more than 16,000 roles while collectively increasing AI spend by over 60% year on year. The total number of tech sector layoffs so far in 2026 now stands above 92,000.

Why it matters

For two years, executives said AI would augment workers, not replace them. This week two of the most powerful companies on earth said, in plain English, that they are cutting staff to offset AI investment costs. That is a different statement. What makes this moment distinct from previous waves is the scale of the spend happening simultaneously. Meta is not cutting costs because it is struggling. It reported record revenue last quarter. It is cutting people to fund a technology bet that Zuckerberg called "the most transformative shift in how we work" at the start of the year. The market reaction will be instructive. Meta reports earnings on Wednesday. If the stock rises on layoff news and AI guidance, investors have told you exactly what they value.

The question nobody's asking

Meta's AI capex this year exceeds the entire GDP of Croatia. If the bet does not pay off by 2028, what does the write-down look like?

Story 05

AWS and OpenAI go live together today to say agentic AI has arrived

The cloud wars are now the agent wars. Today's event is the opening shot.

What happened

Amazon Web Services and OpenAI hosted a joint livestream today, featuring AWS CEO Matt Garman alongside OpenAI leaders. The event centred on agentic AI: systems that operate autonomously, complete complex multi-step tasks, and run continuously without human intervention. AWS announced new agentic platform capabilities within Amazon Bedrock, alongside a discussion of how Amazon itself is deploying agents internally across its global operations. The timing sits one day before Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft all report quarterly earnings on the same day.

Why it matters

Six months ago, AWS and OpenAI signed a $50 billion infrastructure deal. Today they were on stage together, co-selling a vision of how businesses should operate. That is not a vendor relationship. That is a strategic alignment, and it reshapes how you should think about every other cloud provider. Google Cloud has Gemini. Azure had OpenAI exclusively until today. Now AWS has OpenAI too. The exclusivity era is over and the agent platform war has begun in earnest. The companies that define the infrastructure and tooling for agentic AI will capture an enormous share of enterprise software spending over the next decade. Today's event was the opening shot of that campaign.

The question nobody's asking

Amazon is using OpenAI agents to run parts of its own operations. If AWS is simultaneously the cloud provider and the customer, is that a product endorsement or a conflict of interest?

Two tools worth your time

GitHub Copilot billing preview — Before 1 June, GitHub is rolling out a preview bill in your Billing Overview page. If you use Copilot heavily, check your projected costs now before the surprise arrives.

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore CLI — Announced this week, it lets you deploy agents with infrastructure-as-code in 14 AWS regions at no additional charge. If you are building agents, worth an hour of your time today.

That is your Tuesday. The deal that built the AI industry got rewritten. The trial that could unmake it started. The tools millions of developers rely on got repriced. Tens of thousands of people were told their jobs are casualties of the bet. And two of the world's largest tech companies stood on stage together to say the age of AI agents is open for business. By Friday, we will know whether the market agrees.

— Eli

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