There"s been another big executive shake-up at Microsoft"s Windows and Surface divisions. The Verge is reporting that, according to an internal memo sent to company employees, Pavan Davuluri has been named as the new overall leader of both the Windows and Surface teams.
This new shift in management was made just six months after Davuluri was named as the leader of Microsoft"s Surface hardware division in September 2023. Mikhail Parakhin, Microsoft"s head of Advertising and Web Services, was named as the leader of an all-new Windows and Web Experiences team at the same time.
Both of these changes were made following the surprise departure of Windows and Surface leader Panos Panay who was later named the new devices and services head at Amazon. Today"s announcement means that Davuluri will be in charge of both Windows and Surface, similar to what Panay was doing before he left. Davuluri has worked at Microsoft since 2001, which included over eight years as the general manager of the Surface team.
The memo also stated that Parakhin will now report to Microsoft"s chief technology officer Kevin Scott as he explores "new roles." The Verge speculates that Parakhin could eventually depart Microsoft, but that is not confirmed in today"s company memo. Parakhin has been a very public voice at Microsoft for over a year, frequently using his X (formerly Twitter) account to answer questions from users about Microsoft"s Copilot AI assistant.
Today"s shift comes just a few days after the company revealed it would launch a new Microsoft AI division that will be led by Mustafa Suleyman, who co-founded the AI companies DeepMind and Inflection. Microsoft has moved its Edge, Copilot, and Bing teams under the new AI division. Today"s memo stated that the Web Experience team will also be moved under the AI division, and Jordi Ribas will be in charge of Microsoft"s Search, Maps, and Platforms team.