Databricks enters $150m partnership with OpenAI

Databricks has entered into a multi-year, US$100 million ($151.5 million) partnership with OpenAI to expand enterprise access to generative AI models. Under the agreement, OpenAI’s models will be made natively available within the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform and its flagship AI product Agent Bricks.

The collaboration is designed to allow organisations to build, evaluate and scale AI apps on their own enterprise data utilising OpenAI models. These include GPT-5, which will become the flagship model for all Databricks customers.

Enterprise data can be accessed in SQL or via an API. Customers will be able to manage governance and other AI controls using the Databricks Unity Catalog, which can be used to help ensure compliance with security, access and ethical standards.

Databricks co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi said the partnership is aimed at meeting demand for enterprise customers looking to build AI apps and agents on their data, tailored to their unique business needs.

“This partnership makes it easier for enterprises to securely leverage their data and OpenAI models at scale with best-in-class governance and performance,” he said.

Databricks and OpenAI’s technical teams plan to continue to work together to improve and optimise OpenAI models for enterprise use cases. Databricks says it was one of the first companies to host OpenAI’s open-weight model, gpt-oss. The fresh agreement builds on this initial collaboration.

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