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Microsoft’s synthetic intelligence head Mustafa Suleyman is constructing a brand new group centered on shopper well being by hiring employees from an analogous unit he as soon as led at Google DeepMind, because the rival corporations race to create profitable purposes from the cutting-edge know-how.
Suleyman, a British entrepreneur who co-founded DeepMind in 2010, has employed Dominic King, the previous head of DeepMind’s well being unit and a UK-trained surgeon, as vice-president of Microsoft AI’s new London-based well being group.
He has additionally poached Christopher Kelly, a scientific analysis scientist at DeepMind and a neonatal intensive care physician at Evelina Youngsters’s Hospital in London, in addition to two others from his time on the AI start-up.
Microsoft’s new shopper AI well being division comes as tech teams rush to show generative AI right into a staple of on a regular basis life, in a bid to drive revenues from the fast-developing know-how. Sir Demis Hassabis, co-founder and chief govt of DeepMind, can be centered on healthcare, corresponding to main spin-off AI group Isomorphic Labs, which is engaged on drug discovery.
Well being has change into one of many progress areas within the AI growth. Shoppers have typically turned to the online for health-related queries, and a Deloitte survey this 12 months discovered that 48 per cent of respondents requested generative AI chatbots corresponding to ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Claude health-focused questions.
These embrace questions on particular well being situations, signs and psychological well being. Microsoft AI’s well being unit will concentrate on some of these shopper well being purposes utilizing generative AI.
The US tech group, which employed Suleyman earlier this year, confirmed the creation of its new unit. “In our mission to tell, assist and empower everybody with accountable AI, well being is a important use case,” stated Microsoft. “We proceed to rent prime expertise in assist of those efforts.”
Google DeepMind’s well being operation, based by Suleyman, began in 2016 and grew to a group of greater than 100 individuals primarily based in London. The unit had signed a five-year partnership with 10 UK NHS hospitals to course of the medical information of 1.6mn sufferers, and launched an app to observe sufferers’ very important indicators.
Nevertheless, DeepMind was later embroiled in controversy over its work for the UK well being sector amid considerations in regards to the safety of affected person information. This led to Suleyman’s unit being spun off in 2019 by guardian firm Alphabet right into a Google unit in California headed by David Feinberg, the previous chief govt of Geisinger, one of many US’s largest non-public well being teams.
Suleyman left DeepMind that very same 12 months, taking on a brand new coverage function at Google’s California headquarters earlier than leaving in 2022 to do a stint as a enterprise investor. He later created AI start-up Inflection.
In March, Microsoft employed Suleyman from Inflection in addition to most of its employees, together with Karén Simonyan, co-founder and chief scientist of Inflection, and a former DeepMind researcher himself.
Different latest hires for Microsoft’s AI well being unit embrace Peter Hames, the previous chief govt of UK digital well being start-up Huge Well being and Bay Gross, co-founder of digital healthcare supplier Cityblock Well being.
As a part of his broader group, Suleyman has additionally employed former DeepMind colleagues Nando de Freitas and Trevor Again, who led the start-up’s well being analysis group. Nevertheless, each de Freitas and Again won’t work particularly on Microsoft’s well being purposes.
