On Oct. 21, Google Cloud and OpenAI said OpenAI's newest AI models are coming to Model Garden, a catalog Google says holds more than 200 AI models that businesses can build with on its cloud. Three are rolling out in an early test for a select group of business customers: GPT-6 Astra, which Google says is designed for demanding work such as coding and scientific research; GPT-6.1 Sol, which it says comes close to Astra at a lower cost; and GPT-6 Luna, which Google calls a fast, low-cost model for everyday work. OpenAI says it plans to open them to more customers in the coming weeks, and companies can ask for access through a form.
Some companies promise Google in advance to spend a set amount on its cloud. Google says OpenAI's models are bought through its own marketplace, so the charges appear on the same Google Cloud bill and count against what a company has already promised to spend, with no separate contract with OpenAI. Google says customers can then swap between models for each job based on quality, speed and cost. It also says it is now the only one of the biggest cloud companies to offer all three of the leading closed AI models, the kind whose makers don't release them for anyone to download and run, and instead let people use them over the internet, through their own services or partners such as cloud companies. Google did not name the three.
Customers in the test can already build with the models through Google's APIs, the connections that let developers plug a service into their own apps, and can connect OpenAI's Codex, its coding assistant, on their own computers so the AI behind it runs on Google's systems. Google says OpenAI's models are coming soon, with no date set, to Gemini for business and to Antigravity, Google's app for building software with AI agents. AI agents are AI that can carry out tasks on their own, such as using apps and websites, instead of only answering questions. Box, which helps companies put AI to work on their stored documents and other content, says it will be able to give its customers OpenAI's models through Google Cloud.
Google says the requests customers send and the answers they get back stay inside limits each customer sets on where its data can go, and are never used to train AI models. Google also says OpenAI's models run on Google Cloud machines set aside for them. Two further protections, an option for no data to be kept at all and a feature Google calls Confidential Compute, are not ready yet, and Google says both are coming soon.
A news report says the deal follows years of rivalry between Google and OpenAI. Amazon's cloud has offered GPT-6 Astra to its customers generally since Sept. 8, and the same report says the Google deal means OpenAI's models are now on all three of the biggest U.S. cloud providers. OpenAI says Microsoft remains its primary cloud partner.
Neither company has said what the models will cost on Google Cloud, how many customers are in the test, or whether the two companies share the money customers pay.