businessinsider.com
Microsoft is blocking employee access to Perplexity AI, one of the largest customers of its Azure OpenAI service, according to two people familiar with the matter.Perplexity’s product is an AI chatbot search engine that provides conversational answers. It’s powered by Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service, which helps companies like Walmart and JPMorgan Chase build generative AI into their operations and products. Microsoft on Tuesday also announced Coca-Cola signed a $1.1 billion deal that included…
2 days ago
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Microsoft has an internal target to amass 1.8 million AI chips by the end of 2024, according to a document viewed by Business Insider.Microsoft is trying to make generative AI faster, better, and cheaper, but the effort relies heavily on Microsoft buying the chips, graphic processing units, primarily from designer Nvidia.The document suggests that Microsoft plans to triple the number of GPUs it has in 2024.The company, in partnership with OpenAI, is at the forefront of the generative AI boom. St…
8 days ago
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Some Amazon employees are complaining about cuts in future pay, according to internal Slack messages viewed by Business Insider.This is the time of year when employees at Amazon hear about their compensation. The company has a complex system for paying staff, so it’s common for internal debates to crop up when updates such as this happen.Some staff posted on Slack recently that they were seeing cuts of as much as 20% to their projected total compensation.Stock awards are a major part of how Amaz…
14 days ago
businessinsider.com
Microsoft reorganized teams under Jared Spataro, its head of “AI at work,” shifting focus to its Copilot AI products and reducing the number of employees working on its Teams chat app, according to an excerpt of an internal memo shared with Business Insider.“In early 2022, we recognized the pandemic as a once-in-a-generation opportunity and we surged on Teams to win,” Spataro wrote. “Now, we’re doing it again.“The reorganization reduces the number of people working on Teams and creates a central…
24 days ago
businessinsider.com
One of the top customer complaints about Microsoft’s Copilot is that it doesn’t seem to work as well as ChatGPT, according to employees with direct knowledge of customer feedback.“Every time a customer starts using it, they start comparing it to ChatGPT and saying, ‘Aren’t you guys using the same technology?’” one of the people said.ChatGPT, OpenAI’s artificial-intelligence chatbot, has set relatively high expectations for customers who are now trying out Microsoft Copilot tools for the first ti…
29 days ago
businessinsider.com
Microsoft’s hiring spree from the startup Inflection AI came amid concerns from the software giant’s board about instability at OpenAI and internal doubts about consumer-AI vision and strategy, insiders said.The Big Tech company on Tuesday said Inflection CEO Mustafa Suleyman and its cofounder Karén Simonyan were forming a new Microsoft artificial-intelligence organization, along with several members of the Inflection team.Suleyman, who cofounded the AI pioneer DeepMind, is set to be CEO of Micr…
about 1 month ago
businessinsider.com
Some Microsoft insiders worry the company’s AI strategy has become too focused on its partnership with OpenAI.A few even grumble that the software giant has turned into a glorified IT department for the hot startup. These comments were part of a recent exclusive story from Business Insider in which Microsoft insiders shared candid views on the company’s AI future and its new Copilot tools.The group at the center of this is Microsoft’s AI Platform team, run by Eric Boyd. This sits within Scott Gu…
about 2 months ago
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Microsoft’s chance to be the leading AI platform for business has made it the world’s most valuable public company, as Wall Street gushes about a coming productivity revolution.Inside the software giant, the outlook is hopeful but the reality is less glamorous and the path to success less clear.That’s according to interviews with several current senior Microsoft executives, former execs, and many rank-and-file employees, who asked to remain anonymous so they could share candid views on the compa…
about 2 months ago
businessinsider.com
Amazon is warning employees not to use third-party generative AI tools for work, according to multiple internal guidances viewed by Business Insider.“While we may find ourselves using GenAl tools, especially when it seems to make life easier, we should be sure not to use it for confidential Amazon work,” the company warned employees in a recent email. “Don’t share any confidential Amazon, customer, or employee data when you’re using 3rd party GenAl tools. Generally, confidential data would be da…
2 months ago
businessinsider.com
Microsoft is rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilot product to employees as it tries to get more developers to use AI, according to an internal message viewed by Business Insider.The message, sent last week in former Azure boss Jason Zander’s Strategic Missions and Technologies organization, states Microsoft has been running pilot tests to increase AI usage among its developer community and was planning the “broad release” Microsoft 365 to its team for the first time.The organization also had a recen…
3 months ago
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Rubén Caballero, the ex-Apple executive Microsoft hired in 2020 to run device engineering in mixed reality and AI, appears to have quietly left the company.Caballero is no longer listed in Microsoft’s internal directory and has not been seen around the office or on Teams chats, according to a person familiar with the situation. Microsoft has not announced his departure, internally or publicly, and Caballero’s LinkedIn profile still lists his Microsoft role as “present.”“Through both hardware and…
3 months ago
businessinsider.com
Internal Amazon messages suggest the company’s latest round of layoffs has been more widespread than what has been previously made public, affecting roles in Amazon Pay and marketing.Amazon on Wednesday notified employees about plans to cut hundreds of employees from Prime Video and MGM Studios. On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that the Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch would lay off 35% of its staff.An employee’s message on an internal Slack group seen by Business Insider said some Amazon Pa…
4 months ago
businessinsider.com
To get a sense of the real potential and practical pitfalls of generative AI, look no further than Microsoft’s early work on its Security Copilot service.The world’s largest software maker introduced Security Copilot in early 2023. It’s one of Microsoft’s most important new AI products, tapping into OpenAI’s GPT-4 and an in-house model to answer questions about cyberthreats in a similar style to ChatGPT.The road to launching this was challenging but also included hopeful revelations about the po…
4 months ago
businessinsider.com
Hugging Face’s cofounder and CEO, Clément Delangue, wants to make artificial intelligence accessible to every company.It’s an open-source platform where scientists, researchers, and engineers build, train, and deploy AI models. With his company, Delangue wants to follow in the footsteps of companies such as Red Hat by making open-source AI a profitable endeavor.“If we don’t support openness, open science, and open-source AI, just a few companies will be able to do it,” Delangue told Business Ins…
4 months ago
businessinsider.com
The recent firing and rehiring of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has put his leadership and personality under a microscope.Two distinct versions have emerged. One who is “highly toxic” — as the Washington Post reported in a story about vague allegations of psychological abuse — or someone who is so admired by staff that they all threatened to quit unless he was reinstated.People who have worked closely with Altman told Business Insider the truth lies somewhere in the middle.While Altman is ambitious and…
4 months ago
businessinsider.com
Microsoft’s top executives appeared to distance themselves from OpenAI on Thursday during the software giant’s annual shareholder meeting, telling investors its strategy doesn’t rely solely on the startup.AI was a major focus of questions from Microsoft investors during the event. The company has emerged as a leader in generative AI and much of that is thanks to its OpenAI partnership and a major investment in the startup.OpenAI suddenly became a less reliable partner in late November, though. T…
5 months ago
businessinsider.com
Microsoft’s security boss Charlie Bell, in an internal email to employees Tuesday, named a new chief information security officer and announced new roles for the current CISO and deputy CISO, the latter of which will be leaving the organization.Igor Tsyganskiy, the former Bridgewater chief technology officer who recently joined Microsoft, will become the company’s new CISO on January 1. The CISO is responsible for securing Microsoft’s own business, and setting security standards across the compa…
5 months ago
businessinsider.com
Some Amazon employees have noticed an increasing number of Slack messages lately from colleagues who are quitting over the company’s strict return-to-office mandate.“This is my last week at Amazon and my only reason for leaving is the RTH (return-to-hub) policy,” one person wrote in a Monday message on the company’s internal Slack channel dedicated to discussions about Amazon’s policy requiring employees work in whatever city is designated as their team’s “hub.“The channel, called “remote advoca…
5 months ago
businessinsider.com
Viva Engage, Microsoft’s slick message board designed to compete with Slack, is often touted as “Facebook for work.” Microsoft says the tool “strengthens relationships” among remote and hybrid employees and “creates a sense of belonging and purpose.” But since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Business Insider has learned, the Viva Engage platform that Microsoft maintains for its own employees has come to resemble Facebook without work: a site of roiling hostility and personal attacks.In Octobe…
5 months ago
businessinsider.com
When Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott said the company would hire hundreds of OpenAI employees and match their current compensation, some Microsoft workers were furious.“How many loyal employees who stayed at Microsoft while working 12+ hours daily and living in constant fear of being laid off all year?Now here comes OpenAI,” one employee told Business Insider. “We worked even harder when we were told there’s no budget to hire more people. 14-hour days?“For existing Microsoft workers, 2023 was a year i…
5 months ago
businessinsider.com
Amazon’s multiyear commitment to use Microsoft 365 includes more than 1.5 million license seats across different tiers of Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity suite, according to a person with direct knowledge of the deal.The arrangement involves Amazon spending more than $1 billion over five years, according to an internal Microsoft document viewed by Insider and two people familiar with the matter.Amazon already uses an on-premise version of Microsoft’s Office products but is moving to the clo…
6 months ago