Microsoft and Google have been the frontrunners in the AI race. Both tech giants rolled out their AI chatbots, Bing (now called CoPilot) and Bard (now called Gemini), a couple of days apart and have been adding improvements to the tools ever since. While Co-Pilot can now store chat history, has a voice shortcut, edit images and more, Gemini can edit parts of content easily and generate images. And now, Microsoft is developing a whole new AI division to focus on generative AI even more. Interestingly, the Satya Nadella-led company has hired Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman to lead the new AI division.
advertisement
Suleyman, who had earlier served as the head of applied AI at DeepMind, shared the news on his X handle.
He wrote that he is excited to join Microsoft to lead their AI division and that several employees of his startup InflectionAI, including co-founder Karen Simonyan, will also join the team. He added that Inflection AI will get a new CEO and that he has had an amazing journey with the startup. He concluded the post by writing that things are “just getting started.”
“I’m excited to announce that today I’m joining @Microsoft as CEO of Microsoft AI. I’ll be leading all consumer AI products and research, including Copilot, Bing and Edge. My friend and longtime collaborator Karen Simonyan will be Chief Scientist, and several of our amazing teammates have chosen to join us. @InflectionAI will continue on its mission under a new CEO, and look to reach more people than ever by making its API widely available to developers and businesses the world over. It’s been an amazing journey, with so much more to come. Thank you to everyone for your support. Things really are just getting started,” his post read.
Inflection AI began its operations in 2022 and had three co-founders, Mustafa Suleyman, Karen Simonyan and Reid Hoffman.
The company, in a blog post, talked about two of its three co-founders leaving and getting a new CEO. For the unversed, Hoffman is also the co-founder of the popular job-search site LinkedIn.
“Today we are also announcing that two of our three co-founders, Mustafa and Karén, will be leaving Inflection to start Microsoft AI, a new division at Microsoft that will bring together their consumer AI efforts, as well as Copilot, Bing and Edge. We’re grateful for all their amazing work in getting Inflection to this stage, and wish them luck for this new chapter,” the post read.
The post also added that Inflection AI is happy to welcome their new CEO, Sean White.
“We are delighted to welcome a new CEO, Sean White, who has decades of experience working at the cutting edge of technology, research and business. He is a visionary leader poised to take Inflection into this new era. Our third co-founder, Reid Hoffman will continue on our board and remains excited to take these next steps in building personal intelligence for everyone.” it read.
Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also welcomed Suleyman via a post on X. The CEO added that he is “thrilled to have him lead Microsoft AI.”
