Microsoft DeepMind has doubled down on its commitment to AI by signing Mustafa Suleiman, co-founder of Tech.

Microsoft is increasing its influence on artificial intelligence, the technology that has made it the world’s most valuable company, thanks to its alliance with OpenAI. The company’s CEO Satya Nadella announced a high-profile signing this Tuesday. The company has added Mustafa Suleiman, one of the founders of Google-owned DeepMind, to its team, who was currently the head of Inflexion, another artificial intelligence company he co-founded.

“We must ensure we have the capacity to do something boldly new,” Nadella said in his statement announcing the signing, which leads to a restructuring of the group, which he described as “exciting and important.” . He said, “I have known Mustafa for many years and greatly admire him as the founder of DeepMind and Inflexion and as a visionary, creator of products and leading teams pursuing bold missions.”

The artificial intelligence expert has joined Microsoft alongside Karen Simonian, co-founder and chief scientist of Inflexion. With his arrival, the company created a new organization called Microsoft AI, which focuses on the advancement of its artificial intelligence tool Copilot and its other consumer products and the research of this technology. Suleiman will be Executive Vice President and CEO of Microsoft AI and will report directly to Nadella, joining the group’s senior management team. Simonyan joined as chief scientist and reported to Suleiman.

Several members of the Inflection team have also decided to join Suleiman and Karen at Microsoft. According to the company, these include some of the world’s leading AI engineers, researchers and builders. “He has designed, directed, launched, and co-authored many of the most significant contributions to the advancement of AI over the past five years. “I am delighted that they will bring their knowledge, talent and experience to our research and building of consumer AI products,” Nadella said in his note.

inflection, a start up The artificial intelligence company, founded two years ago and which has already reached a valuation of almost $4 billion, designed an assistant called Pi to mimic human understanding of emotions and interact closely with users but was not able to find an effective business model.

The head of Microsoft says his innovation in AI will be based on the company’s strategic alliance with OpenAI, a company led by Sam Altman in which the technology giant is a reference shareholder and on whose board he is an observer. Nadella says the new signings will serve to strengthen that alliance. OpenAI takes care of the base models and Microsoft will develop products on top of them.

The current managers and teams of Copilot Assistant, Bing Search Engine, Edge Browser and Generative Artificial Intelligence area, Mikhail Parakhin and Misha Bilenko, will report to Suleiman. Nadella has revamped Microsoft’s core products around OpenAI’s artificial intelligence technology. Under the Copilot brand, Microsoft has integrated AI assistants into products such as Windows, Office software, Bing, and security tools for businesses and consumers.

“We want to make sure that in this next wave, Microsoft can create really incredible products for the consumer,” Suleiman said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We congratulate Mustafa and Karen on their new roles and look forward to working with them,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement collected by the said agency. “Our partnership with Microsoft is based on leveraging the Azure supercomputing infrastructure built for OpenAI to power our research and train our next-generation models, a critical part of our mission. He added, “We will also continue to develop useful AI products like ChatGPT, which aims to broadly distribute the benefits of AI and foster industry-wide innovation for all.”

Kevin Scott will continue as chief technology officer and executive vice president of artificial intelligence. He will remain responsible for artificial intelligence strategy, including all system architecture decisions, partnerships and cross-company alliances. Nadella said, “Kevin was the first person I trusted to help manage our transformation into an AI-first company and I will continue to rely on him to ensure that our AI strategy and initiatives align with Microsoft’s are consistent in.” Rajesh Jha will remain as Executive Vice President of Experiences and Devices and will continue building Copilot for Microsoft 365 in collaboration with Suleman and his team.

“We are working with speed and intensity and this addition of new talent will allow us to accelerate our pace once again. We have a real opportunity to create a technology that was previously thought impossible and that lives up to our mission of ensuring that the benefits of AI reach every person and organization on the planet safely and responsibly,” Nadella concluded. .

With Deep Mind, Google was a pioneer in artificial intelligence. However, it lagged behind in the generative AI race, where Microsoft took advantage of its alliance with OpenAI. In February, Google launched Gemini, OpenAI’s answer to ChatGPT, although some bugs marred its launch. Bloomberg reported this week that Google is in talks to license Gemini to Apple for new iPhone features expected later this year. The deal with Apple would strengthen the two companies’ relationship in the search field and hinder Microsoft’s progress in smartphones.

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