Is Microsoft Trying To Diversify Its OpenAI Risk By Hiring Inflection AI Founders? Cathie Wood's Potential Successor Thinks So

Microsoft Corporation MSFT, one of the biggest supporters of ChatGPT-parent OpenAI, has onboard two founders from a rival company, and Ark Invest's "chief futurist" thinks the tech giant is trying to diversify. 

What Happened: On Monday, Brett Winton, chief futurist at Cathie Wood-led Ark Invest, shared a press release by Inflection AI on X, formerly Twitter, saying, "Microsoft trying to diversify its OpenAI risk/exposure by partna-hiring the Inflection AI founders."

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The Satya Nadella-led tech giant has brought Inflection AI co-founders Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan to Microsoft. The duo will work in a "new division at Microsoft that will bring together their consumer AI efforts, as well as Copilot, Bing and Edge."

Suleyman is also the co-founder of DeepMind, acquired by Google in 2014. He will be holding the position of EVP and CEO of Microsoft AI, and work under the direct supervision of CEO Nadella. Meanwhile, Simonyan will assume the role of chief scientist within this new division. 

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Why It's Important: Microsoft has a history with Inflection AI. The tech titan spearheaded a $1.3 billion funding initiative for the startup just under a year ago. During this funding period, Inflection AI announced its ambition to build the largest AI cluster globally with the help of 22,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs.

In May 2023, Inflection AI also unveiled their AI chatbot named "Pi," which was designed to provide personal conversations and emotional support to users — a distinctive trait of existing chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google Bard (now named Gemini) and Bing AI. 

Earlier this month, it was reported Microsoft made an investment in another competitor of OpenAI, Mistrial AI, a French newcomer to the AI arena. 

It was reported at the time that Microsoft invested $16.3 million, which will convert into equity in the company's next funding round. However, Microsoft’s significant ownership stake of 49% in OpenAI adds a layer of complexity to its investment in Mistral.

Photo by WEF on Flickr

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