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☆ Bill Gates Is Still Pulling Strings at Microsoft, Overseeing AI Ideas
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-29 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

In fact, Business Insider has learned, Gates has been quietly orchestrating much of Microsoft's AI revolution from behind the scenes. The company, Nadella promised, would "continue to benefit from Bill's ongoing technical passion and advice to drive our products and services forward." According to two executives, Gates' memo treated as gospel, sparking Microsoft's push to take the lead in the AI arms race. Now, it seemed, OpenAI might offer Microsoft a way to help forge the AI future that Gates had long envisioned. According to two executives, Gates' words were treated as gospel, helping spark Microsoft's push to take the lead in the AI arms race.

Persons: Bill Gates, Satya Nadella, Gates, Siri, They're, Clippy, Copilot, That's, Sam Altman, — Gates, Satya, Nadella, Steve Ballmer, Peter Thiel bashed, Bill, Melinda, Jeffrey Epstein, Nadella's, Rather, OpenAI, Kevin Scott, Scott, Altman, you'll, OpenAI's, Bing —, Bing, Steve, Sam, Kayla Wood, Frank Shaw, Shaw, —, Charles Lamanna, Jaime Teevan, Jeff Teper, Charlie Bell —, He's, Forbes, Mustafa Suleyman, DeepMind, Bill G, Suleyman, aren't, hadn't, there's, Ashley Stewart Organizations: Microsoft, Agents, Business, Google, Wired, Street Journal, Rover, Steve Jobs, OpenAI, Amazon Web Services Locations: Tay, Gates, Clippy, Washington, Redmond , Washington, Seattle

☆ Microsoft made cuts to its Teams chat app to focus on its Copilot AI tools, leaked memo shows
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-01 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Read previewMicrosoft reorganized teams under Jared Spataro, its head of "AI at Work," shifting focus to its Copilot AI products and reducing the number of employees working on its Teams chat app, according to an excerpt of an internal memo shared with Business Insider. "In early 2022, we recognized the pandemic as a once-in-a-generation opportunity and we surged on Teams to win," Spataro wrote. AdvertisementMicrosoft spokesman Frank Shaw confirmed Spataro is putting more resources behind Copilot, but said Teams remains a core priority and Copilot is a part of Teams. Copilot for Teams, Shaw said, is the company's most used and loved Copilot according to customer surveys and research and will continue to be a focus of future investments. Microsoft is leaning into the potential of its new Copilot tools, built on OpenAI's GPT models, which so far have mixed feedback from customers.

Persons: —, Jared Spataro, Spataro, Colette Stallbaumer, Frank Shaw, Shaw, OpenAI's, Ashley Stewart, Axel Springer Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Business

☆ Microsoft's hiring of Inflection staff came amid a lack of consumer-AI vision and board concerns about OpenAI, insiders say
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-20 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Microsoft's hiring spree from the startup Inflection AI came amid concerns from the software giant's board about instability at OpenAI and internal doubts about consumer-AI vision and strategy, insiders said. Suleyman, who cofounded the AI pioneer DeepMind, is set to be CEO of Microsoft AI. Microsoft's consumer-AI vision needed a boostSome Microsoft insiders told Business Insider the company's consumer-AI strategy needed a boost and more of a visionary leader. As the new CEO of Microsoft AI, Suleyman's purview is set to include thousands of employees who report to Mikhail Parakhin. Parakhin has played a significant role in Microsoft's AI work and is generally respected within the company for his technical prowess.

Persons: Mustafa Suleyman, Karén Simonyan, Suleyman, they've, Mikhail Parakhin, Parakhin, Rajesh Jha, Jha wasn't, Jha, Microsoft's, Frank Shaw, Shaw, Sam Altman, Satya Nadella, Nadella hadn't, Nadella, Amy Hood, It's, didn't, OpenAI Organizations: Big Tech, Business, Microsoft, BI, Google, Insiders, Microsoft's Locations: OpenAI

☆ Microsoft insiders worry the company has become just 'IT for OpenAI'
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-11 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Some Microsoft insiders worry the company's AI strategy has become too focused on its partnership with OpenAI. Insiders say Microsoft is focused less on the internal services that previously made up Azure AI Services and more on the Azure OpenAI service. The Azure OpenAI service has hundreds of developers supporting customers of Microsoft's Azure cloud service who use OpenAI's GPT models. Some Microsoft employees work so closely with OpenAI that they have badges to get into OpenAI's offices, and some OpenAI employees can badge into Microsoft locations. Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, has a global deal to allow OpenAI to train its models on its media brands' reporting.

Persons: Eric Boyd, Scott, That's, Frank Shaw, Shaw, Ashley Stewart, Axel Springer Organizations: Microsoft, OpenAI, Business, AI Services, AI Bot

☆ Copilot dreams and nightmares: Microsoft insiders share what they really think about the company's AI future.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-06 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

"Customers trust Microsoft more than OpenAI since they already buy Microsoft's ecosystem," a Microsoft AI researcher told BI. "Almost everyone I know is working on Copilot to a certain extent," the Microsoft AI researcher told BI. "It's too premature to assume this is going to be a race to the bottom on price," another Microsoft executive said. Some Microsoft employees work so closely with OpenAI that they have badges to get into OpenAI's offices, and some OpenAI employees can badge into Microsoft locations. Mistral models will be offered to Microsoft customers along with about 1,600 other models including Cohere and Meta's Llama.

Persons: there's, Morgan Stanley, Satya Nadella, they've, they're, Frank Shaw, Shaw, That's, OpenAI, JPMorgan Chase, It's, Dentsu, Shiva Vannavada, Vannavada, Eric Boyd, Scott, John Montgomery, Asha Sharma, Ashley Stewart Organizations: Microsoft, Business, Enterprise, Walmart, JPMorgan, BI, Google, Dentsu, Product, Technology, Employees, Nvidia, DA Davidson, AI Services, AI Bot, OpenAI Locations: OpenAI, Mistral

☆ The Apple exec that Microsoft hired to fulfill its hardware dreams has quietly left
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-06 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Rubén Caballero, the ex-Apple executive Microsoft hired in 2020 to run device engineering in mixed reality and AI, appears to have quietly left the company. Microsoft also recently published a post stating its commitment to the HoloLens 2 device and mixed reality. Caballero worked for Apple from 2005 to 2014, including a stint as president of engineering. Microsoft hired Caballero in 2020 to work on devices such as HoloLens in the company's mixed reality and AI organization. Caballero joined Panay's Windows and Devices organization in 2022, and Microsoft has whittled down some hardware teams since then.

Persons: Rubén Caballero, Caballero, Microsoft's, Frank Shaw, Panos Panay, Ashley Stewart Organizations: Apple, Microsoft, Business, Amazon, Insiders, BI, Windows, Panay's Windows Locations: Panay

☆ Leaked presentation reveals how Microsoft built one of its top AI products, from cherry picking outputs to pitching government clients
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-10 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

GPU supply problemsOriginally, Microsoft was working on its own machine-learning models for security use cases, according to the presentation by Microsoft Security Research partner Lloyd Greenwald. AdvertisementThe pitchThe pitch centered around the benefits of mostly using a single universal AI model rather than many individual models. "Today, our Early Access Program customers regularly share their satisfaction with the latest version of Security Copilot." He also mentioned ServiceNow connectors, and information from Microsoft Defender, the company's antivirus software, along with other sources of security data. It described Security Copilot as a "closed-loop learning system," that gets feedback from users and improves over time.

Persons: —, Lloyd Greenwald, Greenwald, Frank Shaw, Shaw, Microsoft's Shaw, Kevin Scott, Satya Nadella, Eric Douglas, doesn't Organizations: Service, Business, Microsoft, Microsoft Security Research, BI, Microsoft Sentinel Locations: GPT

Read previewThe firing and rehiring of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has undone months of effort by Microsoft to avoid antitrust regulators probing its massive investment in the startup. It's tough to keep a huge business partnership like this out of what can be intense scrutiny from antitrust regulators. Nadella agreed to give Altman and Brockman their own research arm at Microsoft, if he couldn't negotiate their return to OpenAI. Another interpretation is that Microsoft is keen to show antitrust regulators that OpenAI is an independent company, and not controlled by the software giant. AdvertisementDo you work for OpenAI or Microsoft, or are you someone with a tip or insight to share?

Persons: —, Sam Altman, Lina Khan, OpenAI, Altman, Satya Nadella, Kevin Scott didn't, Kevin, Satya, Microsoft's, Brad Smith, Frank Shaw, Sam, Nadella, Altman's, Greg Brockman, Brockman, Amy Hood, ChatGPT, doesn't, Kali Hays, Ashley Stewart, Darius Rafieyan Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Business, FTC, OpenAI, Activision, Blizzard, Markets, Bloomberg, Chief Locations: OpenAI, khays@insider.com, astewart@insider.com

☆ Microsoft's venture capital arm, M12, has faced months of turmoil over a change in strategy and pay, insiders say
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Microsoft's M12 changed its strategy to become less like a VC and more like a business development team. "As with any leadership and strategy change, we aligned our team in a way that helps us meet our future direction. The problem with that shift, sources said, is that a corporate fund needs people who have very different career goals than an independent venture fund does. "Over the last year and half, we brought on new leadership at M12 and intentionally changed our corporate VC strategy. Employees who went along with the strategy change are generally happy at the fund, two of the people said.

☆ Leaked Microsoft organizational chart shows the 19 people running its all-important cloud business
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An internal org chart shows the 19 people running Microsoft's Cloud + AI org under CEO Satya Nadella. An internal Microsoft organizational chart viewed by Insider shows the people in charge of the company's cloud and artificial intelligence business — a business so tremendous, it employs at least one-third of Microsoft's massive workforce. The Cloud + AI org is responsible for Microsoft's Azure cloud business, plus its data platform, developer services, and software like its Dynamics 365 customer relationship management tool. The org is run by Scott Guthrie, one of CEO Satya Nadella's top lieutenants and the exec who has led Microsoft's cloud business since at least 2011. Nat Friedman, the former CEO of Microsoft subsidiary GitHub who stepped down in November 2021, also remained on the org chart viewed by Insider.

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