Ethan Miller
- Satya Nadella is revamping Microsoft's structure by hiring Mustafa Suleyman.
- Suleyman will oversee Microsoft's consumer AI products, Nadella said in a memo sent to staff.
- The Google DeepMind cofounder is leaving his startup, Inflection AI, to join the tech giant.
Satya Nadella is shaking up Microsoft's structure by tapping Mustafa Suleyman, A Google DeepMind cofounder, to lead its AI efforts.
The Microsoft chief is bringing Suleyman into the fold in what appears to be an attempt to fend off rivals like Google.
In the memo, which also announced a reshuffle of a few other teams, Nadella said, "We have a real shot to build technology that was once thought impossible and that lives up to our mission to ensure the benefits of AI reach every person and organization on the planet, safely and responsibly."
The British entrepreneur will report directly to Nadella as the CEO of Microsoft AI, he said in the memo sent to employees. He'll be leading all of Microsoft's consumer AI products and research, including Copilot, Bing, and Edge.
Suleyman left Google in 2022 to launch his own AI startup, Inflection AI, which he cofounded alongside Reid Hoffman and Karén Simonyan. Several Inflection AI team members, including Simonyan, are also joining Microsoft.
Inflection reportedly raised more than $1 billion last year at a $4 billion valuation, with backers including Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, and Nvidia.
Nadella recently said on the Norges Bank Investment Management podcast "In Good Company" that Google "should have been the default winner" of Big Tech's AI race as it has "both the talent and the compute."
Read the full memo that Nadella sent to staffers below:
I want to share an exciting and important organizational update today. We are in Year 2 of the AI platform shift and must ensure we have the capability and capacity to boldly innovate. There is no franchise value in our industry and the work and product innovation we drive at this moment will define the next decade and beyond. Let us use this opportunity to build world-class AI products, like Copilot, that are loved by end-users! This is about science, engineering, product, and design coming together and embracing a learning mindset to push our innovation culture and product building process forward in fundamental ways. In that context, I'm very excited to announce that Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan are joining Microsoft to form a new organization called Microsoft AI, focused on advancing Copilot and our other consumer AI products and research. Mustafa will be EVP and CEO, Microsoft AI, and joins the senior leadership team (SLT), reporting to me. Karén is joining this group as Chief Scientist, reporting to Mustafa. I've known Mustafa for several years and have greatly admired him as a founder of both DeepMind and Inflection, and as a visionary, product maker, and builder of pioneering teams that go after bold missions. Karén, a Co-founder and Chief Scientist of Inflection, is a renowned AI researcher and thought leader, who has led the development of some of the biggest AI breakthroughs over the past decade including AlphaZero. Several members of the Inflection team have chosen to join Mustafa and Karén at Microsoft. They include some of the most accomplished AI engineers, researchers, and builders in the world. They have designed, led, launched, and co-authored many of the most important contributions in advancing AI over the last five years. I am excited for them to contribute their knowledge, talent, and expertise to our consumer AI research and product making. At our core, we have always been a platform and partner-led company, and we'll continue to bring that sensibility to all we do. Our AI innovation continues to build on our most strategic and important partnership with OpenAI. We will continue to build AI infrastructure inclusive of custom systems and silicon work in support of OpenAI's foundation model roadmap, and also innovate and build products on top of their foundation models. And today's announcement further reinforces our partnership construct and principles. As part of this transition, Mikhail Parakhin and his entire team, including Copilot, Bing, and Edge; and Misha Bilenko and the GenAI team will move to report to Mustafa. These teams are at the vanguard of innovation at Microsoft, bringing a new entrant energy and ethos, to a changing consumer product landscape driven by the AI platform shift. These organizational changes will help us double down on this innovation. Kevin Scott continues as CTO and EVP of AI, responsible for all-up AI strategy, including all system architecture decisions, partnerships, and cross-company orchestration. Kevin was the first person I leaned on to help us manage our transformation to an AI-first company and I'll continue to lean on him to ensure that our AI strategy and initiatives are coherent across the breadth of Microsoft. Rajesh Jha continues as EVP of Experiences & Devices and I'm grateful for his leadership as he continues to build out Copilot for Microsoft 365, partnering closely with Mustafa and team. There are no other changes to the senior leadership team or other organizations. We have been operating with speed and intensity and this infusion of new talent will enable us to accelerate our pace yet again. We have a real shot to build technology that was once thought impossible and that lives up to our mission to ensure the benefits of AI reach every person and organization on the planet, safely and responsibly. I'm looking forward to doing so with you. Satya