- Bing chief Mikhail Parakhin is leaving the role and will report to Microsoft’s CTO in the meantime.
- Parakhin led the advertising businesses, in addition to his work on the search engine.
- The reorganization comes days after Satya Nadella tapped Mustafa Suleyman to lead its AI efforts.
Microsoft is again playing musical chairs as another reshuffle of its key teams gets underway.
Days after Satya Nadella announced he was bringing Inflection AI’s cofounder Mustafa Suleyman into the mix as its EVP and CEO of Microsoft AI, Mikhail Parakhin has “decided to explore new roles.”
The Verge reported the news, citing an internal memo.
Parakhin, who led the company’s Bing search engine and advertising businesses, will report to Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott.
Pavan Davuluri, who ran its Surface and devices work, will be head of both Microsoft’s Windows and Surface teams as part of the leadership rejig.
Rajesh Jha, who leads Microsoft’s experiences and devices team, said in the memo, “Satya and I are grateful for Mikhail’s contributions and leadership and want to thank him for all he has done to help Microsoft lead in the new AI wave.”
Nadella announced that Suleyman had joined the ranks in a memo sent to employees last week. The Google DeepMind cofounder will lead its consumer AI products and research, including Copilot, Bing, and Edge.
Several Inflection AI team members, including cofounder Karén Simonyan, are also joining Microsoft. Simonyan will report to Suleyman as chief scientist, while he reports to Nadella.
Microsoft has built AI into its Bing search engine and created other AI tools for Windows and Office under the Copilot brand over the last year.
Nadella’s enlisting of Suleyman demonstrated the Microsoft chief’s uneasiness with the Windows and Web Experience team’s progress, Bloomberg reported, citing two people with knowledge of his thoughts on the matter.
Microsoft didn’t immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment, made outside of normal working hours.