Databricks will bake OpenAI models into its products in $100M bet to spur enterprise adoption

Databricks announced on Thursday its strategic decision to integrate OpenAI's models, including the highly anticipated GPT-5, into its data platform and AI product, Agent Bricks. This initiative is part of a substantial $100 million multi-year investment aimed at attracting enterprise clients. This collaboration underscores the growing urgency among companies to incorporate generative AI solutions that can securely leverage corporate data. Agent Bricks empowers organizations to develop AI applications and agents using their own data alongside various AI models. With the introduction of OpenAI's latest models, accessible through SQL or API, GPT-5 stands out as the primary offering for Databricks' customers. This announcement follows closely on the heels of Databricks' earlier integration of OpenAI's open-weight models, gpt-oss 20B and gpt-oss 120B, into its platform. Additionally, Agent Bricks is designed to evaluate the performance of different models on specific tasks and adjust accordingly to deliver more customized results. Brad Lightcap, OpenAI's chief operating officer, emphasized the significance of this partnership, stating, "Our collaboration with Databricks places our most advanced models in environments where secure enterprise data exists, simplifying the process for businesses to explore, implement, and expand AI agents with meaningful outcomes." As part of this agreement, Databricks has committed to a minimum payment of $100 million to OpenAI, irrespective of the revenue generated from the AI models throughout the duration of the deal. While the specific length of the agreement has not been disclosed, the financial structure presents potential risks for Databricks but ensures consistent income for OpenAI, especially as the latter is in the process of rapidly expanding its data center capabilities. This deal mirrors a previous agreement Databricks made with Anthropic earlier this year, which also involved a $100 million revenue target over five years. A representative from Databricks shared with TechCrunch that there has already been significant demand from clients, including Mastercard, for direct access to OpenAI's models on their platform.