Mustafa Suleyman brings insights and controversies from the past as he joins Microsoft’s AI effort | Top Vip News

On Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that Suleyman, along with his startup’s co-founder and other team members, would lead a new division at Microsoft.

It’s rare for founders to leave their startups and take staff to a big competitor. Suleyman, a pivotal figure in the modern AI landscape, had raised more than $1.5 billion for his startup Inflection AI from a group of renowned investors, including Microsoft.

At Microsoft, Suleyman will oversee artificial intelligence products for the company’s consumer offerings, such as its Bing search engine and Windows.

“It’s been an incredible journey, with so much more to come,” he posted on X after the announcement.

With Suleyman, Microsoft is gaining one of the most visible figures in the AI ​​community, albeit someone who has occasionally sparked controversy and not always delivered successful products.

Suleyman rose to prominence as one of three co-founders of the UK-based artificial intelligence research lab DeepMind. He founded the company in 2010 with two friends, Demis Hassabis and Shane Legg, in what he once described as a “quaint Regency-era office overlooking London’s Russell Square.”

In those early days, Suleyman was involved with London’s effective altruistic community. His goal is to help the world by funding causes that they believe will produce the most substantial benefits possible. The divisive philosophy has long had enormous influence among AI researchers, many of whom argue that more powerful AI systems could devastate humanity unless the industry aligns those systems with human values.

In his book “The Coming Wave,” published last year, Suleyman wrote that AI could put large numbers of people out of work and introduce new and harmful threats unless world leaders act. In the past, he said his arguments were often dismissed by the founders. , CEOs and technology leaders who were not prepared to face the risks.

“Our species is not prepared to truly deal with a transformation on this scale, much less the potential that technology could fail us in this way,” Suleyman wrote.

DeepMind was acquired by Google in 2014.

During his time at Google, Suleyman was at times a divisive figure. In 2019, he was stripped of some management responsibilities after complaints about how he treated staff.

In response to questions from The Wall Street Journal at the time, he said he “accepted comments that, as a co-founder of DeepMind, I demanded too much of people and at times my management style was not constructive.”

Suleyman left Google in 2022.

After launching Inflection that year, the company developed its first consumer product, the Pi, an AI assistant and companion. Pi was introduced as an AI counselor for personal advice and emotional guidance. Suleyman said Pi is kinder and friendlier than competing AI chatbots and she is less likely to appear disobedient and answer questions in an unsettling manner.

“Our goal is to create products that are useful and safe,” he said at a Wall Street Journal event last year.

Still, the Pi didn’t catch on with enough consumers. Some analysts said the limited response to Pi shows Suleyman doesn’t have a great track record of creating successful consumer AI products.

With the departure of Suleyman and others, Inflection announced that under a new CEO, it plans to pivot its business away from consumer products and toward enterprise services. Its investors have been told they will get their money over time with profits from a licensing deal between Microsoft and Inflection, a person close to Inflection said. Forbes previously reported on plans to pay investors.

Microsoft agreed to pay Inflection about $650 million as part of a licensing fee to resell the startup’s technology, a person familiar with the discussions said. The Information previously reported that amount.

Microsoft’s Nadella was directly involved in recruiting Suleyman and his team. The two talked for weeks about the move, people familiar with the discussions said.

Generative AI technology is being used more by professionals and companies than by individual consumers. AI coding assistants, such as Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot, have been adopted by programmers, for example, while a limited number of consumer-grade AI chatbots have gained popularity.

Microsoft’s Bing AI chatbot has so far failed to make a dent in Google’s search market share.

Microsoft executives hope Suleyman and his team can reinvigorate the company’s consumer AI with fresh blood and ideas, a person familiar with the matter said.

Suleyman, for years, has said that AI would bring a new era of technology for everyone.

“I believe AI will be one of the most significant transformations we will see this century,” he said in an op-ed published in November in the Journal.