The hiring of certain former employees from artificial intelligence startup Inflection by Microsoft has been referred for an initial merger investigation in the U. K. According to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the hiring of Mustafa Suleyman, Inflection's co-founder, and most of the startup's staff will be assessed to determine if it constitutes a merger under U. K. rules, potentially reducing competition within the AI sector. The CMA can refer the case for an in-depth investigation, known as a "Phase 2" probe, if it finds reason to investigate further. A decision on whether to refer the case for a Phase 2 investigation will be announced by Sept.

11. In March, Microsoft announced the hiring of Suleyman and other key employees from Inflection. Suleyman was appointed as Microsoft's executive vice president and CEO of Microsoft AI, a newly formed unit focusing on AI products such as Copilot, which has been integrated into Windows and Microsoft 365 software. Alongside Suleyman, Karen Simonyan, a former DeepMind employee, was selected as Microsoft's chief scientist, reporting to Suleyman. This is a breaking news story and further updates will be provided.