Databricks and OpenAI: A $100 Million Push into the AI Future

In a groundbreaking move, Databricks announced on Thursday that it will integrate OpenAI's latest models, including GPT-5, into its data platform, particularly its AI product Agent Bricks. This partnership, amounting to a multi-year contract worth $100 million, aims to harness the full potential of generative AI for businesses. At the heart of this agreement is the ever-increasing demand for secure AI tools that can efficiently process business data. With the introduction of Agent Bricks, companies can easily develop AI applications and agents that directly access their corporate data, utilizing a selection of various AI models. In particular, GPT-5 will be offered as a flagship model to Databricks customers. Databricks had already integrated OpenAI's innovative open-weight models, gpt-oss 20B and gpt-oss 120B, on its platform two months earlier. With Agent Bricks, users now have the ability to measure the accuracy of these models in specific tasks and adjust them accordingly to achieve even more precise results. Brad Lightcap, Chief Operating Officer of OpenAI, emphasized the strength of the partnership: “Our most advanced models are now available exactly where the corporate data securely resides. This greatly facilitates companies in experimenting with, deploying, and scaling AI agents.” As part of this deal, Databricks is taking on a certain risk: It commits to paying OpenAI at least $100 million, regardless of generated revenue. Should revenues exceed the $100 million mark, OpenAI additionally benefits. Although the contract term was not specified, this provides OpenAI with financial stability to support the company's expansion of new data centers. This agreement is reminiscent of a previous agreement by Databricks with Anthropic, which was also geared towards generating $100 million in revenue. According to a Databricks spokesperson, demand, particularly from prominent customers like Mastercard, for native access to OpenAI's models has already increased significantly.