Good morning, AI enthusiasts. The Microsoft-OpenAI relationship is no longer an exclusive marriage… But it’s also not exactly a breakup either.

The new deal terms allow OpenAI to date around in the cloud (hello, Amazon), while Microsoft keeps the awkward-but-lucrative role of ex with benefits: less control, but still very much getting paid.

P.S. — We’re hiring for five new roles at The Rundown to continue scaling our mission to help 1B+ people turn AI into a superpower. Check out the available roles here and earn a $2,000 referral bonus if you help us hire someone full-time.

In today’s AI rundown:

• OpenAI rewrites Microsoft deal, removes AGI clause

• Beijing blocks Meta's $2B Manus deal

• Set up AI teammates with ChatGPT Workspace Agents

• AlphaGo creator’s new $1.1B 'superlearner' lab

• 4 new AI tools, community workflows, and more

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

OPENAI & MICROSOFT

📜 OpenAI rewrites Microsoft deal, removes AGI clause

Image source: Images 2.0 / The Rundown

The Rundown: OpenAI and Microsoft reworked their partnership terms, ending Microsoft's exclusivity over OAI’s IP, killing the AGI clause, and freeing OpenAI to ship products on any cloud while Microsoft keeps a revenue share through 2030.

The details:

• OAI can now utilize rival clouds like Amazon Bedrock, with Microsoft still remaining a main cloud partner with Azure-first launch access through 2032.

• The agreement settles Microsoft's reported lawsuit threat over the $50B Amazon-OpenAI deal that gave AWS exclusive rights to OAI's Frontier platform.

• Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called the announcement “very interesting”, coming after OpenAI CRO Denise Dresser’s memo talking up its Bedrock platform.

• Microsoft will stop paying revenue share to OAI, with both companies' obligations now running on calendar dates instead of an AGI announcement.

Why it matters: It’s no secret that this relationship has gone sour, and these changes remove the exclusivity that Dresser said “limited” OpenAI’s ability to meet enterprises where they were. The AI giant now gets to date around in the cloud, while Microsoft locks in a six-year revenue stream without an ambiguous AGI clause hanging over it.

TOGETHER WITH YOU.COM

📈 Do you know how to evaluate your web search APIs?

The Rundown: Teams often pick a web search provider by running a few test queries and hoping for the best—a recipe for hallucinations and unpredictable failures. This technical guide from You.com gives you access to an exact framework to evaluate web search APIs.

What you’ll get:

• A four-phase framework for evaluating AI search

• How to build a golden set of queries that predicts real-world performance

• Metrics and code for measuring accuracy

Go from “looks good” to proven quality. Learn how to run an eval.

META & MANUS

🚫 Beijing blocks Meta's $2B Manus deal

Image source: Images 2.0 / The Rundown

The Rundown: China vetoed Meta's $2B Manus acquisition and told the companies to withdraw the AI startup deal, turning a Singapore-based company with Chinese roots into a warning shot for founders trying to move talent and tech outside Beijing's reach.

The details:

• Meta announced the $2B deal in December, with Chinese officials opening a January probe into export-control and foreign-investment rules.

• China's National Development and Reform Commission said it would bar foreign investment in Manus, directing Meta and the startup to undo the deal.

• Meta said the two teams were already "deeply integrated" at its Singapore office, and Manus's site already read "now part of Meta."

• The order lands weeks before Trump's planned May meeting with Xi in Beijing, with Manus executives reportedly barred from leaving China during the probe.

Why it matters: Beijing just made AI talent a national security asset, applying to startups the same type of export-control logic the U.S. uses on chips. With the two already intertwined and Meta saying “the transaction complied fully with applicable law”, it’s unclear how an unwind will even work — or if the tech giant will comply.

AI TRAINING

🤖 Set up AI teammates with ChatGPT Workspace Agents

The Rundown: In this guide, you will learn how to set up AI teammates that are actually useful using ChatGPT’s new Workspace Agents tool (currently in research preview for Business, Enterprise, Edu, and Teachers plans).

Step-by-step:

1. Go to chatgpt.com/agents, click Create agent, and pick a tool, database, or process for this agent to “own”.

2. Prompt: “Create an agent that manages [lead pipeline, Google Docs folder, Notion database, etc.]. It should do 3 main tasks that can run autonomously on schedules to save me time.”

3. Follow the setup prompts to add integrations and define what the agent should touch. Codex will look around your integrations to best set up the agent.

4. Return to the Agents page, select your new agent, and try each of the main tasks. You can click the Schedule button to have the agent run every day.

Pro tip: If you don’t have a ChatGPT business plan, don’t worry. You can still use this prompt + approach in other tools to create helpful agents.

PRESENTED BY HEAR.COM

👂 The AI in your ear you haven't heard of

The Rundown: Horizon IX by hear.com uses MultiBeam AI to identify individual speakers and shift microphone focus in real time — automatically adapting to any environment without a single manual adjustment.

With Horizon IX, you'll:

• Hear what 10,000 scans per second actually sounds like

• Track individual speakers as conversations shift — zero manual tuning

• Adapt instantly across any environment, from a packed conference room to a busy street

This is what it sounds like when the hardware finally catches up in AI. Put Horizon IX to the test.

INEFFABLE INTELLIGENCE

🧠 AlphaGo creator’s new $1.1B 'superlearner' lab

Image source: Ineffable Intelligence

The Rundown: Ex-DeepMind researcher David Silver launched Ineffable Intelligence, a London lab that raised $1.1B at a $5.1B valuation to build an AI that learns from experience instead of training data, to “make first contact with superintelligence”.

The details:

• Silver led DeepMind's reinforcement learning team for a decade, building acclaimed models AlphaGo, AlphaZero, AlphaStar, and AlphaProof.

• Ineffable’s models skip pre-training and human data, letting agents learn from experience in simulations — creating what Silver calls a "superlearner."

• Silver framed human data as "a kind of fossil fuel" and his approach as "a renewable fuel, a model that can just learn and learn and learn forever.”

• The $1.1B is Europe's largest seed ever, with Ineffable claiming success would “represent a scientific breakthrough of comparable magnitude to Darwin."

Why it matters: Yann Lecun’s theory that LLMs are a dead end has gotten some powerful companies, with AMI Labs, Recursive Superintelligence, and now Ineffable ($1.1B) all raising on variations of the view. Silver’s track record speaks for itself, and the more brilliant minds taking different paths towards AGI, the better.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

• 🎨 Firefly AI Assistant - Adobe's AI agent for multi-app Creative Cloud work

• 🎥 Kling 3.0 - New 4K mode for generating AI videos with cinematic quality

• 📽️ HappyHorse - Alibaba’s new SOTA video generation model

• ❤️ Lovable - AI app building platform, now available via mobile app

📰 Everything else in AI today

Uncharted: The AI safety & security summit, May 5 – learn how to operationalize AI safety and close the AI security gap with proven enterprise strategies. Register for free.*

The trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI kicked off on Monday with the start of jury selection, with the two sides trading barbs on X ahead of opening statements.

Tech analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said OpenAI is working on its own smartphone alongside MediaTek and Qualcomm, with native AI agents and production likely in 2028.

Adobe opened access to its new Firefly AI Assistant in public beta, letting creators prompt multi-app Creative Cloud workflows while keeping outputs editable.

Alibaba’s new Happy Horse video model rolled out across video platforms, with the release taking the top spot on Artificial Analysis’s video leaderboard.

Taylor Swift filed three federal trademarks for her likeness and voice, joining actor Matthew McConaughey in taking legal action to fight and prevent AI deepfakes.

*Sponsored Listing

COMMUNITY

🤝 Community AI workflows

Every newsletter, we showcase how a reader is using AI to work smarter, save time, or make life easier.

Today’s workflow comes from reader Lydia F. in North Liberty, Iowa:

"I used Codex to build a web-based application to help my teenage daughter study for the Iowa Driver's Permit knowledge test. I uploaded the full test study manual from the Department of Transportation and a couple of practice tests, then built a bank of 200 flashcards and a quiz feature that pulls 25 questions from a bank of 200 multiple-choice and True/False questions (with the most common topics weighted to appear more frequently).

I shared the URL with other moms of teens in my town. Now that studying for the driver's test is so easy, our teens have no excuse!"

How do you use AI? Tell us here.

🎓 Highlights: News, Guides & Events

• Read our last AI newsletter: DeepSeek resurfaces with cheap, capable V4

• Read our last Tech newsletter: Big Tech’s $20B lobbying blitz

• Read our last Robotics newsletter: The Chinese robot ban is coming

• Today’s AI tool guide: Set up AI teammates with Workspace Agents

• RSVP to workshop Thursday @ 2PM EST: Codex for non-technical operators

See you soon,

Rowan, Joey, Zach, Shubham, and Jennifer — the humans behind The Rundown