Now that Phil Spencer is managing Microsoft's broader game platform strategy, who's going to fill his shoes? Now we know: Microsoft has appointed Matt Booty, the overseer of the company's Minecraft teams, as the corporate VP of Microsoft Studios. He'll watch over all of Microsoft's own game publishing efforts, including Halo's 343 Industries, Gears of War's The Coalition and Forza's Turn 10. This isn't just about handing over the keys, though -- as Spencer explained to VentureBeat, it's also about improving the company's first-party game business. Microsoft knows its list of Xbox-exclusive games leaves something to be desired, and it's committing more resources to that area.

Microsoft has decided it needs more real brains working on artificial intelligence. The company said Thursday it is combining the team working on bots like Cortana with its longstanding Microsoft Research lab into a single 5,000-person unit. "Microsoft has been working in artificial intelligence since the beginning of Microsoft Research, and yet we've only begun to scratch the surface of what's possible," Shum said in a statement. The move comes amid the departure of Qi Lu for health reasons, as first reported by Recode. Shum will take over the search efforts that Lu had been responsible for, while Rajesh Jha will take over responsibility for all of Office and get a promotion to executive vice president.