Tech Giants Seek Partnerships, Talent to Speed Up AI Deployment
Hindustan TimesEarlier this week, Microsoft Corp. named artificial intelligence pioneer Mustafa Suleyman chief of its consumer AI business and hired most of the staff from his Inflection AI startup. A day before, Bloomberg reported that Alphabet Inc.’s Google was in talks to license its Gemini AI engine to Apple Inc. HT Image The moves suggest that despite pouring billions of dollars into partnerships, investments and product development, Microsoft and Google are struggling to figure out how to capitalize on generative artificial intelligence. “Companies must constantly be on the lookout for the best talent and technology to fill gaps in their portfolios.” Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella isn’t satisfied with his team’s efforts to create consumer products, according to two people familiar with his thinking. He likened the work to sculpting and said “that art requires you to know the real sweet spot of when a piece of technology is ready and how to dress the experience so that it has an essence and a character which is familiar and accessible and trusted.” Nadella also knows that because AI will completely transform the industry, even Microsoft’s flagship products aren’t immune to disruption—whether by a peer like Google or a startup that hasn’t even been invented yet. Pushing Google’s AI tools to as many devices as possible could help make them the ones users turn to reflexively, as they do with the company’s search engine, creating a virtuous cycle whereby the programs become sharper and sharper with additional user data.