Microsoft appoints new Copilot boss as AI leadership shakeup aims to unify fragmented assistant

Microsoft appoints a new Copilot boss after AI leadership shakeup

Microsoft is doing another executive shuffle today to reorganize how it engineers its Copilot assistant. Different teams have been working on the consumer and commercial sides of Copilot for years, but Microsoft is about to unify parts of them in an effort to create a more cohesive Copilot for businesses and consumers. The changes will see Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman focus on creating Microsoft's own AI models, instead of working directly on the assistant-like features of Copilot for consumers. Suleyman first joined Microsoft nearly two years ago, after Microsoft hired a bunch of folks from Inflection AI. Months after Suleyman's hiring, Copilot for consumers underwent a big redesign that looked very similar to the work Inflection AI had done with its Pi personalized AI assistant. The commercial version of Copilot remained very separate, though. Jacob Andreou will now lead the Copilot experience across both commercial and consumer, and report directly to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. This means Andreou is responsible for the design, product, growth, and engineering of Copilot. Andreou joined Microsoft AI last year, and he's been focused on product and growth. He has previously worked at Snap on product and growth, too. "We are bringing the Copilot system across commercial and consumer together as one unified effort," says Nadella in an internal memo. "This will span four connected pillars: Copilot experience, Copilot platform, Microsoft 365 apps, and AI models. This is how we move from a collection of great products to a truly integrated system, one that is simpler and more powerful for customers." Microsoft has needed this moment for years, especially as Copilot for consumers and businesses both not only looked very different but didn't share a common set of features. This unification should also partly help address the fact that nobody really owns Copilot inside Microsoft. Microsoft is now creating a Copilot leadership team that includes Jacob Andreou, Ryan Roslansky, Perry Clarke, and Charles Lamanna. Roslansky, Clarke, and Lamanna will lead the Microsoft 365 apps and Copilot platform, while Andreou works to align the experience across consumer and commercial Copilots. Suleyman will now focus on building Microsoft's own AI models. "These models will enable us to build enterprise tuned lineages that help improve all our products across the company," says Suleyman in his internal memo. "Jacob will retain a dotted line to me, and I'll stay directly involved in much of the day-to-day operation of Microsoft AI," says Suleyman. It's hard not to also read this as an admission that Microsoft's effort to separate the Copilot experience for consumers and businesses has failed over the past couple of years. The consumer Copilot user experience has been unlike anything Microsoft has tried in the past, and it'll be interesting to see if Microsoft continues to lean into this digital assistant direction. It's also unclear what happens to Microsoft Edge, Bing, MSN, and the company's ad businesses that all reported up to Suleyman. Microsoft made a big push with its Bing AI efforts three years ago, but ended up rebranding Bing Chat to Copilot. With Suleyman now focused on models, the teams responsible for Edge and Bing are likely headed to a new leader soon. This latest leadership shakeup comes less than a week after Rajesh Jha, executive vice president of Microsoft's experiences and devices group, announced his retirement from Microsoft after more than 35 years. Rja had been overseeing Microsoft 365 Copilot, Windows, Office, and more, so I'd expect we'll see further team changes ahead of Microsoft's new financial year. Former Xbox chief Phil Spencer also announced his retirement from Microsoft last month. Spencer is leaving Microsoft after nearly 40 years, and Asha Sharma is the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming.

Microsoft Copilot boss Suleyman to chase superintelligence

Microsoft has rearranged the deckchairs on the RMS Copilot, sending Mustafa Suleyman to seek out superintelligence, and putting Jacob Andreou in charge of Copilot across consumer and commercial. Suleyman, a DeepMind veteran who was appointed CEO of Microsoft AI by Satya Nadella in 2024, spent his entire tenure talking up Copilot, unveiling creepy animated avatars, insisting all was well with the OpenAI deal as Microsoft quietly developed its own models, and exclaiming "Jeez there are so many cynics!" at a public skeptical of AI. Copilot has yet to set the market alight despite Microsoft crowbarring the assistant into as many places as it can find (at least until recently) and Suleyman is now making what looks for all intents and purposes like a sideways move to focus on superintelligence and delivery of "world-class models for Microsoft over the next five years." Suleyman had already announced he was heading up a new superintelligence team in November, so the reorganization frees him from the pesky need to show a return on AI investments. Andreou, previously Corporate VP for Product and Growth at Microsoft AI, will report directly to Nadella, though Suleyman says he'll "stay directly involved in much of the day-to-day operation," attending meetings and supporting product strategy. Both will sit on a newly established Copilot Leadership Team alongside Charles Lamanna, Perry Clarke, and Ryan Roslansky. Suleyman also acknowledged "the sacrifices many of you have made to help the company adapt to this new era" - cold comfort to anyone affected by the multiple waves of layoffs at Microsoft in recent years. As former Microsoft staffer Ned Pyle posted in July last year: "How many billions must be burned in the AI furnace before this stops?" Suleyman concluded today that the restructuring would "enable me to focus all my energy on our Superintelligence efforts," and that Microsoft has "an incredible opportunity to redefine" itself for "this agentic revolution." Another restructure at Microsoft a week ago was triggered by the confirmation of company veteran Rajesh Jha's retirement. Jha is Microsoft Executive Vice President (EVP) for Experiences and Devices. ®

Microsoft reshuffles AI team to catch up on Copilot and model building

Microsoft has reshuffled its AI leadership, shifting responsibilities away from DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman and appointing a new boss for its Copilot tool as it struggles to gain market share. Jacob Andreou, a former Snap executive who joined the company last year, has been promoted to run the entire Copilot division that spans its consumer chatbot app and 365 office service, reporting directly to chief executive Satya Nadella, the company said in a memo on Tuesday. Suleyman, who joined Microsoft in 2024 to lead consumer AI for the tech giant, has had his responsibilities reduced to overseeing development of the group's frontier large language models as it attempts to catch up with rivals. "Progress at the AI model layer is more critical than ever to our success as a company over the next decade and is foundational to everything we build above it," Nadella said in the memo. "We are doubling down on our superintelligence mission with the talent and compute to build models that have real product impact." Microsoft must achieve "true self-sufficiency" by building its own powerful models and reducing its reliance on OpenAI, Suleyman said in an interview with the FT last month. The Redmond, Washington-based software giant has a longstanding partnership with the ChatGPT maker and owns 27 per cent of its for-profit arm but increasingly competes with it for business customers. Microsoft's in-house family of models trails the most advanced offerings from Anthropic, Google and OpenAI, but the company has said it hopes new releases later this year will close the gap. Suleyman said in the memo the restructuring will "enable me to focus all my energy on our superintelligence efforts and be able to deliver world-class models for Microsoft over the next five years". The changes also attempt to simplify and streamline what customers and staff had complained was a confusing array of different Copilot brands. Nadella said the company would now have "one unified effort" and "move from a collection of great products to a truly integrated system". In its most recent earnings report, Microsoft disclosed it had sold 15mn 365 Copilot subscriptions, only a tiny fraction of its more than 450mn commercial customers. Its consumer Copilot app and website has only 150mn monthly active users, far behind the 750mn a month that Google's Gemini claims. Market leader ChatGPT has about 900mn weekly active users.

Microsoft unifies Copilot commercial and consumer product teams in unit rejig

March 17 (Reuters) - Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab said on Tuesday it is reorganizing its Copilot AI product teams by unifying its commercial and consumer versions, as ⁠the tech giant rushes to improve its AI assistant product and drive better adoption. Jacob Andreou, who has served as the ⁠corporate vice president of Product and Growth at Microsoft AI since ⁠last year, will lead the company's Copilot ⁠efforts across consumer and commercial, Microsoft ⁠said. Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Microsoft shakes up Copilot AI leadership team, freeing up Suleyman

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman speaks during an event highlighting Microsoft Copilot, the company's AI tool, on April 4, 2025 in Redmond, Washington. The company also celebrated its 50th anniversary. Microsoft said Tuesday that it's bringing together the engineering groups for its commercial and consumer Copilot assistants, which have yet to gain broad adoption. Jacob Andreou, a former Snap executive who works in Microsoft's artificial intelligence unit, will become an executive vice president in charge of the consumer and commercial Copilot experience, CEO Satya Nadella wrote in a memo to employees. Andreou will report to Nadella. Executives Ryan Roslansky, Perry Clarke, and Charles Lamanna, who will also report to Nadella, will lead Microsoft 365 applications and the Copilot platform, Nadella wrote. The moves will free up executive Mustafa Suleyman, a former co-founder of AI lab DeepMind that Google bought in 2014, to focus more on building new models. Since arriving at Microsoft through the Inflection deal in 2024, Suleyman has spent time working on Copilot for consumers, among other initiatives. "We are doubling down on our superintelligence mission with the talent and compute to build models that have real product impact, in terms of evals, COGS reduction, as well as advancing the frontier when it comes to meeting enterprise needs and achieving the next set of research breakthroughs," Nadella wrote.

Microsoft revamps Copilot structure, elevating former Snap exec as Suleyman shifts to AI models

Microsoft is reorganizing its Copilot organization, unifying its consumer and commercial AI efforts under former Snap executive Jacob Andreou while narrowing the role of Microsoft AI leader Mustafa Suleyman to focus on the superintelligence and frontier models. The news, announced Tuesday by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, is a new attempt by the company to gain traction as AI shifts from chatbots that converse with users to agents that take action on their behalf. It's the latest shakeup in the company's executive ranks. Microsoft 365 Copilot had 15 million paying users at last count, about 3% of the overall user base for the enterprise platform. Estimates from Statcounter show Copilot with a low‑single‑digit share of global AI chatbot usage, well behind its partner OpenAI's ChatGPT. "This is how we move from a collection of great products to a truly integrated system, one that is simpler and more powerful for customers," Nadella said in an email to employees about the changes, published by the company on its website. Andreou joined Microsoft last year from Snap, where he spent eight years and rose to senior vice president. As corporate vice president of product and growth at Microsoft AI, he has been leading the consumer Copilot effort. As executive vice president of the combined Copilot group, he will report directly to Nadella, leading overall design, product, growth, and engineering. Suleyman, a co-founder of DeepMind, joined Microsoft as CEO of AI when the company brought over most of the team from his AI startup Inflection AI in 2024. He will continue reporting to Nadella but shift his focus to building frontier AI models. Microsoft formed a Superintelligence team under Suleyman in November, and Tuesday's restructuring effectively makes that his primary mandate. In his email to staff, Suleyman said the restructuring will allow him to commit fully to the company's superintelligence efforts and deliver models over the next five years that improve products and reduce the cost of running AI workloads at scale. Microsoft 365 apps and the Copilot platform will be led by Ryan Roslansky, CEO of LinkedIn; Perry Clarke, who leads Microsoft 365 core infrastructure; and Charles Lamanna, who oversees business and industry Copilot. Together with Andreou and Suleyman, they will form a new Copilot Leadership Team. Roslansky, Clarke and Lamanna began reporting directly to Nadella earlier this month as part of the succession plan for Rajesh Jha, the longtime executive vice president who is retiring after more than 35 years at the company.

Microsoft is mixing up its Copilot AI leadership, so Suleyman can 'build enterprise tuned lineages'

Microsoft brings consumer and enterprise Copilot into closer alignment * Copilot's consumer and enterprise teams are going to fall under single leadership * Microsoft's AI products will feel more unified and cohesive * AI CEO steps over to focus on enterprise model development Microsoft has set out plans to combine its consumer and commercial Copilot teams in order to push for a more unified AI experience. The move comes in response to criticism that business and individual Copilot products had different features, with customers worried about clear fragmentation. Now, though, Jacob Andreou will lead the entire unified Copilot experience, reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella across design, product and engineering. Microsoft merges its Copilot teams' leadership TextThe new leadership group will consist of Ryan Roslansky, Perry Clarke and Charles Lamanna, working with Andreou, while Mustafa Suleyman will move away from Copilot features to focus on building Microsoft's own AI models. In a letter to colleagues, Nadella explained that the team will work across four key areas: "Copilot experience, Copilot platform, Microsoft 365 apps, and AI models." Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman shared a separate memo to workers (available via the same link), explaining his refreshed goal to develop enterprise-focused and cost-efficient 'superintelilgence' models over the course of the next five years. "These models will enable us to build enterprise tuned lineages that help improve all our products across the company," he wrote. But for now, Microsoft remains intent on using OpenAI's GPT models - a continued partnership with the ChatGPT-maker licenses their use until at least 2032. "We are doubling down on our superintelligence mission with the talent and compute to build models that have real product impact," Nadella added. For now, though, Copilot adoption remains relatively low. It has fewer daily users (6 million) than Claude (9 million), both of which are miles behind Gemini (82 million) and ChatGPT (440 million). Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button! And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

US Stocks: Microsoft rejigs Copilot teams, freeing up AI chief for superintelligence push

Microsoft said on Tuesday it is reorganizing its Copilot teams by unifying its commercial and consumer versions, as the tech giant rushes to improve its AI assistant product and drive better adoption. The restructuring will free up Microsoft's ⁠AI chief ⁠Mustafa Suleyman, enabling the industry veteran to focus more sharply on building new artificial intelligence models and drive the company's superintelligence efforts. Microsoft shares were trading 0.17% lower at 399.28 on Tuesday. Jacob Andreou, who has served as the corporate vice president of Product and Growth at Microsoft AI since last year, will lead ⁠the company's Copilot efforts across consumer and commercial, Microsoft said. Senior executives Ryan Roslansky, Perry Clarke, and ⁠Charles Lamanna will lead M365 apps and the Copilot platform. The reorganization will "enable me to focus all my energy on our Superintelligence efforts and be able to deliver world class models for Microsoft over the next five years," Suleyman said. Microsoft has been racing to boost adoption and usage of Copilot, looking to better compete with tech giants such as Google and startups like Anthropic, ⁠which have seen strong uptake of their own AI products in the past year. The Windows maker last week unveiled Copilot Cowork, a tool based on Anthropic's viral Claude Cowork product, which has seen strong reception, with users praising its ability to handle complex tasks with limited human oversight.

Microsoft Reorganizes Copilot Team, Names Jacob Andreou EVP Reporting To CEO Nadella

'This is how we move from a collection of great products to a truly integrated system, one that is simpler and more powerful for customers,' says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Microsoft is looking to better unify innovation of its Copilot artificial intelligence product across commercial and consumer users with an internal restructuring that promotes one executive and creates four new pillars within the technology giant-with alignments expected "over the next few weeks" as part of the changes. The four organizational pillars the Redmond, Wash.-based AI and cloud products giant is building are Copilot experience, Copilot platform, Microsoft 365 applications and AI models. Microsoft revealed that three executives recently promoted to direct reports to CEO Satya Nadella-Charles Lamanna, Perry Clarke and Ryan Roslansky-will lead the M365 apps and Copilot platform pillars. "This is how we move from a collection of great products to a truly integrated system, one that is simpler and more powerful for customers," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a blog post about the changes Tuesday. "Our org boundaries will simply reflect system architecture and product shape such that we can deliver more coherent and competitive experiences that continue to evolve with model capabilities. And I am looking forward to how together we apply all of this to empower people, organizations, and the world." [RELATED: Microsoft's Rajesh Jha To Retire, CEO Satya Nadella Promotes Seven Executives] CRN has reached out to Microsoft for comment. The restructuring comes days after Microsoft revealed that Rajesh Jha, a 35-plus-year Microsoft veteran who ascended the ranks to executive vice president of the Experiences + Devices Group, will move into an advisory role July 1. Jha's transition comes with promotions of a variety of long-time Microsoft executives-including Lamanna, Clarke and Roslansky. Nadella disclosed in the Tuesday blog post that as part of the changes, Microsoft has promoted Jacob Andreou (pictured above) to the role of Copilot executive vice president. Andreou-who has been with Microsoft for about a year, previously serving as corporate vice president of product and growth within the Microsoft AI division-will report directly to CEO Nadella. Although Andreou will report directly to Nadella, in a separate blog post Tuesday, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said that Andreou "will retain a dotted line to me." In Andreou's new role, he "lead the Copilot experience across consumer and commercial, driving design, product, growth, and engineering," Nadella said. In his CVP role, he "accelerated our user-focused AI-first product making and growth framework." Before Andreou joined Microsoft in 2025, he worked at Snapchat parent company Snap for about eight years, leaving in 2023 as senior vice president of product and growth, according to his LinkedIn account. Suleyman, who has served as Microsoft AI CEO since 2024 after a deal with the Inflection AI startup Suleyman co-founded and led as CEO-will continue to hold a leadership position in Microsoft's AI efforts. Suleyman will continue to report to Nadella and lead the vendor's AI model and "superintelligence" innovation work, which involves building models that can reduce business' cost of goods sold, meet enterprise needs and achieve research breakthroughs. "Mustafa is uniquely qualified to drive this forward, with his deep focus and commitment to advancing the frontiers of model science, while also ensuring that human control, agency, and economic opportunity remain at the center of these advancements," Nadella said. In Suleyman's own Tuesday blog post about the organization changes, he said the moves will now allow him "to focus all my energy on our Superintelligence efforts and be able to deliver world class models for Microsoft over the next 5 years." The Microsoft AI CEO is at work building AI models that will bring enterprise-tuned lineages that should improve products across the vendor's vast portfolio and reach new cost of goods sold efficiencies to scale AI workload service over the coming years. Suleyman plans to stay directly involved in much of the day-to-day operations of Microsoft AI, including attending meetups, and will support Andreou in product strategy efforts. Andreou, Suleyman, Roslansky, Clarke and Lamanna comprise the Copilot leadership team (LT) and are spending the next few weeks aligning teams to fit the new structure, according to Microsoft. This leadership team will focus on brand strategy, product roadmap, models, core infrastructure and user experiences, Suleyman said. The other executives promoted alongside the Jha retirement announcement days ago are Pavan Davuluri, Jeff Teper, Sumit Chauhan and Kirk Koenigsbauer. In January, Microsoft reported a slew of new milestones around growing Copilot use, including reveals that daily users of the Copilot application nearly tripled year over year, Microsoft 365 Copilot's average number of conversations per user doubled year over year and daily active users increased tenfold year over year.

Microsoft unifies Copilot commercial and consumer product teams in unit rejig

Microsoft is bringing together its Copilot AI for businesses and individuals. This move aims to enhance the AI assistant and boost its use. Jacob Andreou will now lead all Copilot efforts. This reorganisation signals Microsoft's focus on improving its AI offerings. The tech giant is pushing forward to make its AI assistant more effective for everyone. Microsoft said on Tuesday it is reorganizing its Copilot AI product teams by ⁠unifying ⁠its commercial and consumer versions, as the tech giant rushes to improve its ⁠AI assistant product and drive better ⁠adoption. Jacob Andreou, who has served as the corporate vice president of Product and Growth at Microsoft AI since last year, will lead ⁠the company's Copilot efforts across consumer and commercial, Microsoft said.

Microsoft has a new Copilot boss, all you need to know

When you think of Microsoft and AI, the first word that comes to mind is Copilot. After all, Microsoft's AI assistant is everywhere these days. It won't be wrong to say that Copilot is becoming a central part of the company's strategy across Windows, Office and enterprise tools. At the same time, Microsoft has also been reshuffling leadership roles to better align with its long-term AI goals. Recently, Asha Sharma moved to lead Xbox. And now, the company has made another big change by bringing in a new leader for Copilot experiences. Also read: Microsoft takes a u-turn on bringing more AI features on Windows PCs, says new report Microsoft has appointed Jacob Andreou as the new head of Copilot experiences, covering both consumer and commercial products. He joins as an executive vice president and will report directly to CEO Satya Nadella. Before this role, Andreou worked at Snap (company behind Snapchat), where he served as a senior vice president and played a key role in shaping user-facing products. His appointment suggests that Microsoft wants to strengthen how users interact with Copilot across platforms. Alongside Andreou, other leaders like Ryan Roslansky, Perry Clarke and Charles Lamanna will oversee areas such as Microsoft 365 apps and the Copilot platform. The change was announced in an email sent to employees, which was then shared on the company's website as a blog post. In the aforementioned blog post, Satya Nadella explained that Microsoft is reorganising Copilot around four key pillars, which include the Copilot experience, platform, Microsoft 365 apps and AI models. He added that this structure will help the company move from having multiple strong products to building a more connected and powerful AI system. The focus is on simplifying how users interact with AI while also improving performance and integration across services. "We are bringing the Copilot system across commercial and consumer together as one unified effort. This will span four connected pillars: Copilot experience, Copilot platform, Microsoft 365 apps, and AI models. This is how we move from a collection of great products to a truly integrated system, one that is simpler and more powerful for customers," Nadella said in the post. In addition to this, Mustafa Suleyman, who leads Microsoft AI, will now spend more time building in-house AI models. Suleyman also described superintelligence as a key part of Microsoft's future and said the company plans to develop advanced AI systems over the next few years. At the same time, he also said that these systems will be built with human control and safety in mind. "As you will have just heard from Satya, the next phase of this plan is to restructure our organization to enable me to focus all my energy on our Superintelligence efforts and be able to deliver world class models for Microsoft over the next 5 years," he said as per the blog post.