Microsoft is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission over its deal with Inflection AI, according to The Wall Street Journal. Back in March, the company hired almost all of Inflection AI's employees, including founders Karén Simonyan and Mustafa Suleyman, who was also a DeepMind cofounder. In addition, Microsoft paid Inflection AI 650 million to license its artificial intelligence technology. Now, the FTC wants to know whether the companies deliberately structured the deal to avoid being the subject of regulatory antitrust review. As The Journal notes, companies are required to report any acquisition that's valued at 119 million or more to federal antitrust agencies.

Microsoft has appointed the co-founder of the British artificial intelligence lab DeepMind as the head of a new AI division. Mustafa Suleyman, 39, co-founded DeepMind with Demis Hassabis and Shane Legg in 2010 and the company went on to be bought by Google for 400m in 2014. It now forms the core of Google's AI efforts after merging with another unit to become Google DeepMind in 2023. The chief executive of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, announced in a blogpost that the British AI pioneer, who left DeepMind in 2019, will be chief executive of a new organisation called Microsoft AI focusing on the US company's consumer products and research. Several employees at Sulyeman's Inflection AI startup will join the division.

Microsoft now has a lone leader overseeing consumer AI for the first time. Suleyman will try to push the consumer-facing Copilot assistant into the future, preparing for what may be a long battle with Google for artificial intelligence supremacy among Silicon Valley's Big Five companies. Suleyman's official title will be executive vice president and CEO of a new division called Microsoft AI, reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella. Joining him will be fellow Inflection AI cofounder Karén Simonyan, who takes the title of chief scientist. "Messy" could be one way to describe Microsoft's Copilot rollout.

Last year was a time of excitement in the machine learning arena as a growing number of startups closed huge funding rounds in 2022. Emerging companies have implemented machine learning solutions to solve administrative and operational hurdles businesses encounter every day. While many machine learning products remain conceptual, machine learning tools are increasingly being adopted by companies worldwide. A number of machine learning companies entered their fourth or even fifth series of funding deals in 2022 and we are starting to see more tangible products, driven by machine learning algorithms, enter the market. With that in mind, let's look at the 10 biggest funding rounds achieved in the machine learning space in 2022, according to research firm GlobalData.

Were you unable to attend Transform 2022? Check out all of the summit sessions in our on-demand library now! Tech startups are going through tough times as a result of a slowdown in growth capital. Investment firms are advising their portfolio companies to extend their runway. Companies are suffering from valuation markdowns and resorting to layoffs to cut costs.

Inflection AI, the start-up launched earlier this month by LinkedIn billionaire Reid Hoffman and DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, has poached artificial intelligence gurus from Google and Meta, according to CNBC analysis. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Inflection's aim is to develop AI software products that make it easier for humans to communicate with computers. When the company was launched, the only three team members that were made public were Suleyman, Hoffman and former DeepMind researcher Karén Simonyan. However, others have now joined the fold. Heinrich Kuttler left his research engineering manager role at Meta AI in London this month to become a member of the founding team at Inflection, working on the technical side of the business, according to his LinkedIn page.

Did you miss a session at the Data Summit? This week in AI, DARPA, the emerging technologies R&D agency of the U.S. Defense Department, launched a new program that aims to "align" AI systems with human decision-makers in domains where there isn't an agreed-upon right answer. Elsewhere, two prominent cofounders from LinkedIn and DeepMind, Reid Hoffman and Mustafa Suleyman, announced a new AI startup called Inflection AI that seeks to develop software that allows humans to talk to computers using everyday language. In a press release describing the new three-and-a-half-year program, DARPA says that the goal is to "evaluate and build trusted algorithmic decision-makers for mission-critical Department of Defense operations." Dubbed "In the Moment," or ITM, it focuses on the process of alignment -- building AI systems that accomplish what they're expected to accomplish.

DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman has joined two other high-profile industry figures in launching a new venture called Inflection AI. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is joining Suleyman on the venture. "Reid and I are excited to announce that we are co-founding a new company, Inflection AI," wrote Suleyman in a statement. "Inflection will be an AI-first consumer products company, incubated at Greylock, with all the advantages and expertise that come from being part of one of the most storied venture capital firms in the world." Dr Karén Simonyan, another former DeepMind AI expert, will serve as Inflection AI's chief scientist and its third co-founder.