Microsoft says ‘once AGI is declared by OpenAI’ it will be verified by independent experts – here’s why that’s a big deal (www.techradar.com)

Microsoft and OpenAI have rewritten their partnership so that OpenAI can no longer unilaterally declare it has reached artificial general intelligence (AGI): any such claim must be verified by an independent expert panel. The update also extends Microsoft’s intellectual-property rights to OpenAI models and products through 2032 and explicitly preserves Microsoft’s continued access post‑AGI, addressing earlier fears that OpenAI could cut Microsoft out at a pivotal moment. The change coincides with OpenAI’s corporate restructuring and gives both firms clearer rights to pursue AGI independently or with other partners. Technically and practically, the deal makes AGI a formal milestone rather than a marketing claim: verification will need to establish cross‑domain competence, autonomous learning, and human‑level or superior reasoning rather than mere scaling of current large models. Key details remain open — who selects the panel, its membership, and the verification criteria — but the move injects external checks into a previously in‑house trigger and may set expectations for future oversight. For researchers and industry, the agreement reduces the risk of abrupt access loss, encourages clearer definitions of capabilities, and nudges the field toward third‑party validation of major claims even if it falls short of formal regulation.