Microsoft rejigs Copilot teams

Microsoft is reorganising its Copilot ⁠teams by ⁠unifying its commercial and consumer versions, as the tech giant rushes to improve its artificial intelligence assistant to drive better adoption.

Strong reception for Google's Gemini and the launch of autonomous agents ‌such as Anthropic's viral Claude Cowork have posed ‌risks ‌both to Microsoft's AI business and broader ‌software offerings, as the company races to boost ⁠adoption and usage of Copilot.

The restructuring will free up Microsoft's AI chief, Mustafa Suleyman, enabling the industry veteran to focus more sharply on building new AI models and drive the company's superintelligence ​efforts.

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 reorganisation 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.

Consumer Copilot experiences, which span chat, news, search, ​shopping and operating system integrations, have seen ⁠daily app users nearly triple year over year, ⁠CEO Satya Nadella said during Microsoft's earnings call in January.

M365 Copilot, the AI assistant aimed ​at business users, has reached 15 million annual users, Nadella added.

The Windows ‌maker's partnership ⁠with OpenAI, which powers most of its AI offerings including M365 Copilot, was once seen as its strongest competitive edge, but the startup now accounts for roughly 45 percent ‌of Microsoft's remaining performance obligation, highlighting its heavy dependence on the relationship.

Microsoft last week unveiled Copilot Cowork, a tool based on Claude Cowork — which users have praised for its ability to handle ​complex tasks with limited human oversight.

In November, Microsoft formed an MAI Superintelligence Team to build AI systems that are vastly more capable than humans in certain domains, starting with ‌medical diagnostics, ⁠following similar efforts by Meta ​Platforms, Safe Superintelligence Inc and others.