Microsoft “plans” Copilot, Edge and Bing into a new Microsoft AI division, promising strong investments

The year 2023 has shown that Microsoft is betting heavily on artificial intelligence, even considering it one of the pillars of vital importance to the company's future development. As part of its strategy to increase investment in this potential field, Microsoft has just announced the establishment of a new division called "Microsoft AI", led by Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind and Inflection.

Mustafa Suleyman will serve as the Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft AI, reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella on all matters related to the new business unit. Karen Simonyan, another co-founder of Inflection, will join the team as Director of Research, reporting to Mustafa Suleyman.

Both are well-known names in the field of artificial intelligence. According to a post on Microsoft's official website, Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan are two of the names that have "designed, led, implemented, and co-authored many of the most important contributions to the development and shaping of the global AI field over the past five years."

As part of the transition, Mikhail Parakhin and his entire team, including Microsoft Edge, Copilot, and Bing, will move to the new unit alongside Misha Bilenko and the GenAI team. Both will report to Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman.

It’s a little puzzling that no changes have been made to Windows, which is a particularly important part of Microsoft’s strategy for rolling out new AI services. The Windows team recently got a new boss after CEO Panos Panay left Microsoft, and it’s expected to see a big push into AI this year, so it’ll be interesting to see how it ties into Microsoft’s new AI division. While the blog post doesn’t mention Windows 11, it’s clear that Microsoft is going to be increasing its investment in AI-powered experiences, and this will impact all of the company’s consumer and commercial products.