
Microsoft is restructuring its AI teams, merging the groups working on consumer and business versions of its Copilot AI assistant products, and appointing a former Snap exec to lead the effort. As part of the reorg,
Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft's head of AI, will now focus on developing new, advanced AI models, according to media reports.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the changes in an email to employees on Tuesday.
The move is intended to help Microsoft streamline its sprawling assortment of AI products. At one point, the company offered more than a dozen different versions of CoPilots,
Bloomberg reported, leaving customers confused.
Suleyman's move, meanwhile, underscores Microsoft's increasing seriousness about developing its own in-house AI models, after initially partnering with OpenAI (and investing $13 billion in the ChatGPT maker), and later working with Anthropic. "We are doubling down on our superintelligence mission with the talent and compute to build models that have real product impact," Nadella wrote in the memo,
according to CNBC.Leading the Copilot business will be Jacob Andreu, who was SVP of product and growth at social media platform Snap until 2023. He joined Microsoft last year, after a stint at VC firm Greylock.—
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