Microsoft is bringing Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Google DeepMind, on board as CEO of a new team that will manage the company’s consumer-facing AI suite, including Bing, Copilot and Edge. He will also serve as executive vice president of Microsoft AI, reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella.
Suleyman cofounded DeepMind, an AI lab, in 2010, and it was purchased by Google four years later. In 2019, Google put Suleyman on leave because of controversy surrounding certain projects he led and there was an investigation into a claim that Suleyman bullied staff. He left Google in 2022 and cofounded a new startup, Inflection AI.
“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 wrote in a memo to employees. “We have a real shot to build technology that was once thought impossible and that lives up to our mission to ensure the benefits of AI reach every person and organization on the planet, safely and responsibly.”
Microsoft has also hired some of Inflection AI’s employees, including cofounder Karén Simonyan, who will now be the chief scientist of the company’s consumer AI group.
