Microsoft appoints a new Copilot boss after AI leadership shake-up

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 not only looked very different but also 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 shake-up 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. Jha 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.