- Microsoft's AI chief Mustafa Suleiman revealed the company's main goals.
- The DeepMind co-founder oversees key teams including Bing, Edge and Copilot.
- In a podcast chat with Seth Rosenberg, Suleiman said he wanted to “improve” the quality of co-pilots.
Microsoft's new AI head, Mustafa Suleiman, is keen to ensure the tech giant isn't underestimated.
During a recent podcast with Seth Rosenberg, Suleiman explained his new role at the company, saying he oversees key teams including Bing, Edge and Copilot, Microsoft's flagship AI product.
Suleiman added that he has been impressed by Microsoft's scale and influence since joining the company in March.
“The quality, scale and impact of the product is much greater than I could have ever imagined coming from Silicon Valley and growing up at Google,” he said.
He said the company's reputation in Silicon Valley needed a “rethink.” Despite being one of the world's most valuable companies, Microsoft has spent the past decade in the shadow of its rival Google.
Suleiman was a co-founder of DeepMind before Google acquired it, after which he served as Google's vice president of AI product management and AI policy for two years.
After leaving the company in 2022, Suleiman co-founded Inflection AI, which was later acquired by Microsoft, and subsequently became CEO of Microsoft AI, leading the company's AI efforts.
Suleiman said his main goal at the company is to “improve the quality of our co-pilots.”
“We're working closely with OpenAI to build the best models in the world, fine-tuning them on top of all of their models and infrastructure,” he said, adding that the next phase of Microsoft's AI assistant will focus on memory and personalization.
“AI should remember everything about you, your situation, your personal data, everything you've said, and support you, be your helper and companion throughout your life. That's what we're focused on,” he said.
Microsoft's Copilot has been relatively well-received by users, and the company benefited from being quick to get the product to market, several months before rival Google.
However, Business Insider previously reported that one of the biggest complaints from Microsoft customers is that Copilot's performance isn't as good as OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Microsoft says customers aren't using the new tools properly and it is paying partners to produce videos to teach customers how to write better prompts.
A Microsoft representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI made outside of regular business hours.
