Microsoft-backed (MSFT) OpenAI continues to be the “uncontested leader” in artificial intelligence despite the cases filed against it by Tesla (TSLA) Chief Executive Elon Musk and The New York Times (NYT), Macquarie said in a note emailed on Monday.
Musk is seeking the removal of GPT-4 from the scope of Microsoft’s intellectual property licensing agreement with OpenAI, while The New York Times sued OpenAI for copyright infringement.
“But, regardless of these cases, we have seen the performance gap between GPT-4 and other models narrow, but certainly not close, throughout 2023,” the note said.
Macquarie said Microsoft’s Copilot product roadmap would likely be set back if GPT-4 becomes inaccessible to the company because of any of those cases. “But we do not think it would derail its AI product initiatives by any means,” Macquarie said.
Macquarie maintained its outperform rating and $455 price target on Microsoft stock.