Microsoft says that it creates a new unit, the Advanced Planning Unit (APU), within its Microsoft AI sales division which will help the company understand the societal, health and labor implications of AI hopes to build .
Microsoft AI, which includes Copilot, Bing and Edge products from Microsoft, becomes basic for Microsoft’s growth strategy – to the chagrin of certain shareholders. This week, the company indicated that its capex for the fourth quarter 2024 had exceeded $ 22.6 billion, a new record, which, according to the CEO, Satya Nadella, was necessary to meet the request for tenders and Microsoft cloud.
“While the AI becomes more efficient and accessible, we will see more demand exponentially,” Nadella said on Tuesday at the conference call on the results of the fourth quarter.
The APU will work from the office of the CEO of Microsoft AI, Mustafa Suleyman, and combine “advanced research” to “explore and articulate” a range of scenarios possible for the future of AI, according to has job stations. The APU will also be responsible for making product recommendations – and suggesting planning results based on them – as well as producing a program rolling of events, publications and other reports to “help to deepen our understanding” .
Some APU members will be responsible for writing memories that will be sent to Microsoft product managers, developers and management teams, while others will help organize the conference and write documents communication, according to publications. Everything will work in Microsoft AI offices in Silicon Valley and London.
In a Series of messages on XSuleyman said the APU sought to hire economists, psychologists, “and beyond”, as well as those who have history in emerging fields such as quantum, nuclear and silicon.
“We are looking for [people] To capture this hyper-evolutionary space and let us know what is going on and why is important, ”said Suleyman. “These roles are incredible and rare opportunities to dig deeply and to think with imagination at AI, by working from a point of view at the forefront of the science of AI and the development of products.”
How will AI change models of work, life, connection, creation and play? What will lead him in the right direction?
– Mustafa Suleyman (@mustafasuleyman) January 31, 2025
APU training comes shortly after Microsoft has created a new internal organization focused on AI called Coreai – platform and tools. A combination of the division of existing developers of the company and the AI platform teams, Core has actually won Microsoft’s developer divisions to guarantee that AI remains an absolute priority.
In a memo published on Microsoft blog In early January, Nadella said Microsoft’s attention for the coming year would be “[AI] Model applications “which revive all categories of applications”.
“While we are starting the new year, it is clear that we are entering the next rounds of this AI platform change,” said Nadella. “Thirty years of change are compressed in three years!”
It is not only Microsoft who reorganizes and hires to study the impacts of AI and guide the development of technology. OPENAI, a collaborator and partner close to Microsoft, brought in his first chief economist last October to conduct research on how AI could influence economic growth and job prospects.
According to a recent study Through the Brookings Institute, the existing generative AI could disrupt at least half of the tasks that more than 30% of all workers do regularly.
“Despite the high issues for workers, we are not prepared for the potential risks and opportunities that the generator is about to bring,” wrote the co-authors of the report.
