Mustafa Suleyman: DeepMind Cofounder is new Microsoft AI CEO
With a major stake in ChatGPT creator OpenAI, Microsoft’s significance in the field of generative AI (Gen AI) has helped it reach unprecedented highs, decisively overtaking Apple as the most valuable company in the United States earlier this year.
With CEO and Chairman Satya Nadella at the helm, Microsoft has fully embraced the Gen AI revolution: building the technology into its consumer and enterprise offerings.
“We’ve moved from talking about AI to applying AI at scale,” he recently said in an investors relationship call. “By infusing AI across every layer of our tech stack, we’re winning new customers and helping drive new benefits and productivity gains across every sector.”
Now, in its latest move, Microsoft has announced it has hired Inflection and DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman as the CEO of Microsoft AI. Fellow Inflection cofounder Karén Simonyan will also be joining Microsoft as Chief Scientist, along with several of the startup’s 70 staff.
“I’m excited to announce that today I’m joining Microsoft as CEO of Microsoft AI,” Suleyman said in a statement. “I’ll be leading all consumer AI products and research, including Copilot, Bing and Edge. My friend and longtime collaborator Karén Simonyan will be Chief Scientist, and several of our amazing teammates have chosen to join us.
“InflectionAI will continue on its mission under a new CEO, and look to reach more people than ever by making its API widely available to developers and businesses the world over.
“It’s been an amazing journey, with so much more to come.”
“I’ve known Mustafa for several years and have greatly admired him as a founder of both DeepMind and Inflection, and as a visionary, product maker, and builder of pioneering teams that go after bold missions,” Nadella said in a message to Microsoft staff.
“Karén, a Co-founder and Chief Scientist of Inflection, is a renowned AI researcher and thought leader, who has led the development of some of the biggest AI breakthroughs over the past decade including AlphaZero.
“Several members of the Inflection team have chosen to join Mustafa and Karén at Microsoft. They include some of the most accomplished AI engineers, researchers, and builders in the world. They have designed, led, launched, and co-authored many of the most important contributions in advancing AI over the last five years. I am excited for them to contribute their knowledge, talent, and expertise to our consumer AI research and product making.”
Who is Mustafa Suleyman, new CEO of Microsoft AI?
A serial tech entrepreneur, Suleyman co-founded DeepMind, one of the world's leading AI research companies, in 2010 along with Demis Hassabis and Shane Legg.
At DeepMind, he led the application of AI systems to solve real-world problems, including in healthcare. He left DeepMind in 2019 and went on to co-found Inflection AI, an artificial intelligence research institute. There, he served as the Co-founder and CEO, with the company going on to release several products including the Pi large language model: a competitor to GPT4.
Suleyman has advocated for the development of advanced AI systems that are safe and aligned with human values. He has called for greater public and regulatory engagement on the societal impacts of AI. In 2017, he was included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for his work in AI. He holds degrees from Oxford University, University College London and Stanford University.
In 2019, he received the Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his influence in the UK technology sector. The same year, he accepted the Silicon Valley Visionary Award.
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