Microsoft’s Copilot reorganization marks a significant structural shift as the company merges its consumer and commercial artificial intelligence assistant teams under a single leadership structure, according to an internal memo from Chief Executive Satya Nadella reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Jacob Andreou, who currently leads product and growth for Microsoft AI, will become executive vice president of Copilot. In this new role, Andreou will oversee design, product, growth, and engineering for the unified Copilot product.
Suleyman Shifts Focus to AI Models
Mustafa Suleyman, chief executive of Microsoft AI, will now focus primarily on the company’s proprietary AI models and its pursuit of what Microsoft calls superintelligence. Suleyman joined Microsoft in 2024 to lead consumer Copilot and build AI models to compete with those from OpenAI and other leading labs.
Meanwhile, Microsoft 365 apps will be led by a group of executives that includes Ryan Roslansky, chief executive of LinkedIn and an executive vice president at Microsoft.
Copilot Reorganization Aims for Unified Experience
The Copilot reorganization eliminates the divide between distinct commercial and consumer products. Microsoft aims to deliver a single, coherent product experience across both business and consumer applications. Nadella stated in his memo that the new setup would enable more competitive experiences as AI models advance.
Nadella also stated that proprietary AI models are more critical than ever to Microsoft’s success over the next decade. The effort to train those models has faced challenges, however, including a shortage of computing capacity that has caused Microsoft’s models to lag behind competitors in benchmark tests.
Adoption Figures Highlight the Challenge
Microsoft reported in February that it had sold 15 million Microsoft 365 Copilot seats. That figure represents a fraction of Microsoft 365’s base of more than 450 million paid seats. The company also reported more than 150 million monthly active Copilot users across its first-party platforms.
In comparison, Google’s Gemini has more than 650 million monthly users, while ChatGPT has approximately 900 million weekly active users. Customer surveys conducted by Microsoft showed that users have been confused by the multiple versions of Copilot, a challenge the Journal reported in February.
“The new setup will enable Microsoft to deliver more coherent and competitive experiences that can evolve as AI models advance.”
Satya Nadella, Chief Executive, Microsoft
New Features and Monetization Confidence
Microsoft has introduced new features to attract users to its consumer Copilot. These include a tool announced last week that allows the chatbot to provide personalized healthcare advice based on users’ medical history.
In its most recent earnings report, Microsoft stated it was allocating more computing power to improve its Copilot products. The company cited growing confidence in its ability to monetize those products as the reason for the increased investment.
Outlook
The structural changes position Microsoft to compete more directly with rivals in the AI assistant market. Whether the unified approach will accelerate adoption among both enterprise and consumer users remains to be seen as the company works to close the gap with ChatGPT and Gemini.