Microsoft Invites Mustafa Suleyman to Lead Pioneering AI Efforts

Mustafa Suleyman is appointed by Microsoft to lead creative AI projects

The current wave of the AI era, prevalent in Silicon Valley and the broader corporate landscape, owes much to DeepMind, a startup based in London, UK. Since its establishment in 2010, DeepMind has been at the forefront of researching advancements in machine learning technology. Acquired by Google in 2014, DeepMind has introduced highly acclaimed software like the protein predictor AlphaFold.

Recently, Mustafa Suleyman, one of DeepMind's original co-founders, departed from his position as co-founder and CEO of the AI startup Inflection. He was joined by his Inflection co-founder Karén Simonyan and several other members of the Inflection team. Together, they are forming a new division at Microsoft, a key competitor to Google.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced in an official blog post and public email today, "I am pleased to announce that Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan will be joining Microsoft to establish a new entity named Microsoft AI. This organization will focus on advancing Copilot and our other consumer AI products and research."

Nadella further stated, "Mustafa will assume the role of EVP and CEO, Microsoft AI, and will be part of the senior leadership team (SLT), reporting directly to me. Karén will join as Chief Scientist within this group, reporting to Mustafa. I have known Mustafa for several years and have always held him in high regard for his roles as a founder of both DeepMind and Inflection. He is recognized as a visionary, product innovator, and leader in building pioneering teams dedicated to ambitious missions."

Suleyman shared on the social network X, "I am thrilled to announce my new role as CEO of Microsoft AI. I will oversee all consumer AI products and research, including Copilot, Bing, and Edge. Karén Simonyan, a close collaborator, will serve as Chief Scientist, and we are fortunate to have several talented team members joining us."

Meanwhile, Inflection revealed that Sean White, former Chief of Research and Development at Mozilla, will assume the role of CEO. The company also disclosed plans to introduce its Inflection-2.5 artificial intelligence model to Microsoft Azure and other cloud platforms in the future, without specifying an exact timeline.