Mustafa Suleyman, one of the co-founders of Inflection AI, has been appointed as the CEO of Microsoft’s consumer artificial intelligence division. This decision comes after Sam Altman, previously from OpenAI, briefly held a similar position following his departure from ChatGPT’s parent company. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s choice to recruit Suleyman, a well-known figure in the AI industry, is seen as a strategic move to compete with Google. Additionally, Microsoft has also hired a significant portion of Suleyman’s startup team.
Born in 1984, Suleyman’s father was a Syrian taxi driver, while his mother was an English nurse. He dropped out of Oxford University and went on to launch his first startup, DeepMind, in 2010. DeepMind was later acquired by Google in 2014, and Suleyman served as the VP of AI Products and AI Policy at Google. DeepMind’s algorithms have contributed to a 40% reduction in energy consumption at Google’s data centers, and the company has also developed Google’s Gemini AI model.
In 2022, Suleyman co-founded Inflection AI with Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn. Backed by Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Bill Gates, Inflection AI has raised over $1.5 billion and is valued at over $4 billion. Suleyman’s influential role in the AI industry was recognized when he was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in AI in 2023. He is also the author of the bestselling book “The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century’s Greatest Dilemma,” and is known for his work as a social worker.
As the new CEO, Suleyman will be responsible for overseeing various projects at Microsoft, including the integration of AI Copilot into Windows and the enhancement of conversational features in the Bing search engine. This appointment marks the first time that all consumer-focused AI initiatives at Microsoft will be unified under one leadership. Suleyman will also lead AI product development and research for Copilot, Bing, and Edge. His official designation at Microsoft is EVP and CEO of Microsoft AI, reporting directly to Nadella.
In addition to securing Suleyman’s appointment, Microsoft has also brought on board Karen Simonyan, the other co-founder of Inflection AI, and several team members. Simonyan will assume the role of chief scientist within the same group. This recruitment effort is part of Microsoft’s ambitious strategy to attract top talent in the field of artificial intelligence. Following the departure of its co-founders, Inflection AI will focus on its AI studio business, which involves the development and testing of customer-centric AI models.
