(San Francisco) DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman will become the head of a department newly dedicated to consumer AI at Microsoft, the entrepreneur announced Tuesday.
Mustafa Suleyman is one of the biggest names in the artificial intelligence revolution taking the tech world by storm and his hiring is a major move for Microsoft, which is already associated with ChatGPT creator OpenAI.
Of all the tech giants, Microsoft has been the fastest adopter of generative AI, integrating its powers across a range of products, including through its Copilot chatbot.
“I’m excited to announce that today I’m joining @Microsoft as CEO of Microsoft AI. I will lead all consumer AI products and research, including Copilot, Bing and Edge,” Suleyman said on X.
The researcher and entrepreneur said he was stepping down as CEO of Inflection, a startup which he co-founded and which has become a promising rival to OpenAI and Anthropic in building models providing ChatGPT-style AI.
He added that some key Inflection employees, including co-founder Karen Simonyan, had “chosen to join” his team at Microsoft. “We have been working with speed and intensity and this infusion of new talent will allow us to accelerate our pace once again,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a blog post. The new leader of Microsoft AI will report directly to the big boss of Microsoft.
Nadella said AI innovation at Microsoft will always depend on its partnership with OpenAI, the Sam Altman-led company in which Microsoft invested $13 billion last year.
“We congratulate Mustafa and Karén on their new roles and look forward to working with them,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement to US media.
With this hiring, Microsoft consolidates its position as leader in the sector, by accumulating investments and partnerships well beyond its agreement with OpenAI.
Last month, the group announced its partnership with French startup Mistral AI, a company seen as another promising start-up in the generative AI space.
The full adoption of AI has often surprised rival Google and has seen Microsoft become the world’s largest company by market capitalization, taking the top spot ahead of Apple.
DeepMind, co-founded by Mr Suleyman, was acquired by Google in 2014 for $500 million and the company merged entirely with Google’s AI research arm last year.