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Azure OpenAI's fastest-growing segment is attracting some of the biggest names in tech, with TikTok once spending nearly $20 million a month on the platform
Microsoft’s cloud AI business has quietly assembled a client roster that reads like a who’s who of the tech industry. TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, Adobe, and AI search startup Perplexity have all become significant customers of Azure OpenAI, the service that lets companies plug into OpenAI’s models through Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure.
The business is on track to hit a $10 billion annual run rate, making Azure OpenAI the fastest-growing segment of Microsoft’s entire cloud operation.
TikTok led the charge, then the field caught up #
ByteDance was, at one point, the single largest spender on Azure OpenAI services. The short-form video giant was shelling out nearly $20 million per month as of 2024, accounting for roughly 25% of the platform’s total revenue.
That share has since dropped below 15%, not because TikTok pulled back, but because the customer base diversified. More companies started writing bigger checks, diluting any single client’s dominance.
Adobe and Meta both crossed the $1 million monthly spending threshold on Azure OpenAI services as of September 2024, earning spots on Microsoft’s top-10 customer list.
Perplexity bets big on Azure #
Perplexity signed a $750 million, three-year deal with Microsoft Azure, giving it access to AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI through a single cloud platform.
The deal also ties Perplexity into Microsoft Foundry, the company’s platform for building and deploying AI applications. Perplexity has woven its AI orchestration tools directly into Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365, effectively embedding itself into the daily workflows of millions of enterprise users.
Adobe’s marketing AI play #
Adobe’s relationship with Microsoft has taken on new urgency with generative AI. The two companies have been collaborating on agentic AI tools designed specifically for marketing workflows, including a marketing agent built for Microsoft 365 Copilot.
What the customer mix reveals #
Microsoft’s position here is unusual. It’s simultaneously a major investor in OpenAI, the host of OpenAI’s models through Azure, and a competitor to many of its own AI customers. Adobe competes with Microsoft in certain productivity categories. Perplexity’s AI search could eventually challenge Bing. TikTok competes with Microsoft-owned LinkedIn for attention and advertising dollars.
Yet they all keep writing checks to Azure. The $10 billion annual run rate target, if achieved, would represent a meaningful new revenue stream for Microsoft. More importantly, it would validate the strategy of turning OpenAI’s technology into an enterprise service rather than just a consumer product.
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