Microsoft's 'top executive' for GenAI research, Sebastien Bubeck to join OpenAI; here's what the company said

Microsoft 's Vice President of GenAI research, Sebastien Bubeck , is reportedly departing to join ChatGPT maker OpenAI . However, the news agency Reuters reports that Bubeck 's specific role at the Sam Altman-led artificial intelligence (AI) startup remains undisclosed. Bubeck has led research on generative AI at Microsoft, focusing on developing advanced language models. His departure represents a significant personnel shift in the rapidly evolving landscape of AI research and development. This move is also notable given Microsoft's significant investment in OpenAI and highlights the two companies' close relationship and talent flow.



What Microsoft said about Bubeck’s departure


"Sebastian has decided to leave Microsoft to further his work toward developing AGI ," a spokesperson for Microsoft. The spokesperson also added that the company looks forward to continue its relationship with the startup through Bubeck's work with OpenAI. However, Bubeck has yet to share an official response regarding the change.

Another report by the Information which was the first one to reveal Bubeck’s departure claims that his coauthors who worked on a research paper on Microsoft's Phi LLMs, will remain at Microsoft and plan to continue developing the model. These models are smaller than traditional large language models (LLMs).



OpenAI’s recent leadership changes


Amidst a wave of departures from OpenAI, including the recent exit of long-standing CTO Mira Murati, CEO Sam Altman denies any connection to a planned company restructuring. These high-profile exits have fueled speculation about potential internal shifts within the leading AI startup.

Earlier this month, Google Deepmind hired one of the co-leads on OpenAI's video generator, Sora. Tim Brooks, who led Sora's development alongside William Peebles, announced his move to Google's AI research division on social media platform X (earlier Twitter). Brooks said that he will continue his work on video generation technologies and "world simulators” in Google DeepMind.