After huge layoffs last week, Microsoft are now chucking billions of dollars into OpenAI

They want to apply tech such as ChatGPT and DALL-E to consumer products

In a statement on theircorpo blog, Microsoft said the research partnership would focus on three main areas: supercomputing at scale, the cloud, and “new AI-powered experiences”. That last one’s relevant to us, because Microsoft are planning to use OpenAI’s tech in their consumer products. Whether that means Microsoft’s Windows software or their Xbox and PC games hasn’t been discussed publicly yet, but it’s possible that advances in responsive AI or asset generation could be incorporated into both further down the line.

Either way, this announcement feels poorly timed. Microsoftlaid offthousands of staff last week, including employees at Bethesda, Halo stewards 343 Industries, and Gears team The Coalition. The company are also still in the process of acquiring Call Of Duty andOverwatchpublisher Activision Blizzard for the sum of$68.7 billion(£56 billion), a deal announced last January.