Indian-origin techie Jay Parikh to lead Microsoft's new AI division
What's the story
Microsoft has announced the formation of a new engineering group, the CoreAI - Platform and Tools division.
The team will be led by Jay Parikh, former Meta engineering chief.
This new division is a merger of Microsoft's Dev Div and AI platform teams, along with select members from the Office of the CTO team.
The primary objective of this newly-formed group is to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) platform and tools for both Microsoft and its clients.
Future outlook
Nadella's vision for the new AI team
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella outlined his vision for the new team in an internal memo, noting that "we're entering the next innings of this AI platform shift" in 2025.
He believes this shift will "reshape all application categories."
Nadella predicts that AI will have a major impact on every part of the application stack, adding that "30 years of change is being compressed into three years!"
Strategic shift
Nadella advocates for an 'AI-first app stack'
Nadella stressed on the need for an "AI-first app stack" at Microsoft, which will determine how its developers use and create AI apps and tools in the future.
He said "Azure must become the infrastructure for AI, while we build our AI platform and developer tools - spanning Azure AI Foundry, GitHub, and VS Code - on top of it."
This move will revolutionize software development.
Leadership
Parikh's role and responsibilities in the new AI group
Parikh, who currently serves as the executive vice president of CoreAI - Platform and Tools, reports directly to Nadella. He is also a part of Microsoft's senior leadership team.
In his new role, a number of other Microsoft executives will report to him, including AI platform chief Eric Boyd, deputy CTO of AI infrastructure Jason Taylor, head of Microsoft's developer division Julia Liuson, and head of developer infrastructure Tim Bozarth.
Project focus
Microsoft's new AI team to focus on Copilot, AI stack
The new CoreAI team will be responsible for building the end-to-end Copilot & AI stack for Microsoft's first-party and third-party customers. The project will enable the creation and operation of AI apps and agents.
Before Microsoft, Parikh spent over a decade at Facebook (now Meta) working on technical infrastructure and data center projects that helped the company grow into the world's largest social network.
Background
Parikh's background and previous projects
Parikh, former global head of engineering at Meta (formerly Facebook), joined the company in 2009, contributing to technical infrastructure and data center projects.
He also led key initiatives like Meta's subsea cables and the Aquila drone project. Parikh has also served as CEO of Lacework, a cloud security firm.
As per his LinkedIn, he attended Virginia Tech from 1990 to 1994.