Amazon Discusses Getting Special Access to OpenAI Tech

As Amazon weighs an equity investment of tens of billions of dollars in OpenAI, the companies are also discussing a commercial agreement that could require OpenAI to dedicate its own researchers and engineers to developing customized models for powering Amazon’s own AI products, according to a person involved in the talks and another person who was briefed about it.

Amazon could use customized versions of OpenAI’s models to bolster Amazon AI products such as the Alexa voice assistant, one of these people said. Such an arrangement could require both companies to tweak OpenAI models so they respond to customers the way Amazon wants, this person said.