Microsoft hires Mustafa Suleyman, DeepMind’s co-founder, to lead its new consumer AI unit

Microsoft has hired Mustafa Suleyman to lead a new consumer-facing AI unit. Suleyman is the co-founder and CEO of Google’s DeepMind, as well as the chief executive officer of Inflection.

Microsoft announced Tuesday that Suleyman will be reporting to Satya Naddella, its chief executive. He is a British entrepreneur and co-founder of DeepMind, which was founded in London in 2010. He will create a new division at Microsoft, MicrosoftAI, that combines consumer-facing Microsoft products such as Copilot, Bing and Edge, along with GenAI.

Microsoft is attempting to capitalize on the growing demand for generative AI. Microsoft has invested $13bn into OpenAI, which is the creator of ChatGPT. It also integrated their technology quickly.

Microsoft’s investment into OpenAI gave it a head start in Silicon Valley’s race for AI deployment, while Google struggled to catch up. The company has also invested in other AI startups, such as French developer Mistral.

It has been rolling an AI assistant into its products, such as Windows software, Office software, and cyber security tools. Suleyman’s unit will be working on projects such as integrating an AI version Copilot into Windows and enhancing Bing’s search engine.

Nadella stated in a press release on Tuesday that he has known Mustafa since several years ago and greatly admired his vision, as well as the fact that he is a product maker, a visionary and a builder of pioneering team who go after bold missions.

Google acquired DeepMind in 2014 for $500mn. This was the first big bet by a large tech company to invest in a startup AI lab. A few years later, the company was in controversy over its projects. One of them, its work with the UK healthcare industry, had been found to be given inappropriate access patient records by a government monitor.

Suleyman was put on leave for 2019. DeepMind employees had complained about his overly aggressive leadership style. Suleyman admitted that he had made a mistake when addressing staff complaints. I was pretty demanding and relentless.

He joined Google a few months later and led the AI product management. In 2022, he joined Silicon Valley venture firm Greylock. He launched Inflection that same year.

Microsoft will also hire the majority of Inflection staff, including Karen Simonyan who is co-founder of Inflection and chief scientist. She will now be the chief scientist for Microsoft’s AI group. Microsoft did not specify the number of employees who were moving but stated that it included AI researchers, large language model builders and AI engineers.

Inflection is a competitor to OpenAI. It will shift its focus away from its consumer-facing chatbot Pi and instead sell enterprise AI software for businesses. This was announced on the website. Sean White has been appointed as the new CEO. He has worked in various tech roles.

Inflection has retained Reid Hoffman as its third co-founder. Hoffman is the founder of LinkedIn and executive chairman. He will continue to serve on Inflection’s board. Inflection raised $1.3bn (valuing the company at $4bn) in June. This was one of the biggest fundraisings for an AI start up amid a boom in interest in the field.

Microsoft has made a major organisational change with the creation of this new unit. Mikhail Parakhin will report to Suleyman along with the rest of his team.

Nadella stated, “We are in a position to create technology that was previously thought to be impossible. This will help us achieve our mission of ensuring that the benefits AI can bring to every individual and organization on the planet safely and responsibly.”

In the US and Europe, competition regulators have been examining the relationship between Microsoft OpenAI as part of a wider inquiry on AI investments.