Microsoft’s AI CEO Has a Strict In-Person Work Policy

Microsoft just lately mandated that staff come into the workplace in particular person three days every week beginning in February 2026 — however for workers on Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman’s crew, working in particular person for a lot of the week is already the norm.

In response to a report launched earlier this week from Enterprise Insider, Suleyman requires staff on his crew who reside close to an workplace to be there no less than 4 days every week. Suleyman is the top of Microsoft AI, a division targeted on Copilot and different shopper AI merchandise and analysis. Executives who report on to Suleyman should approve all exceptions to the in-office rule.

“I very a lot consider within the in-person working tradition,” Suleyman advised Enterprise Insider, stating that it helps “defragment” groups and permits for collaboration.

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Not solely does Suleyman require staff to work from the workplace greater than different Microsoft staff, however he additionally prefers open ground plans, the place staff sit at open desks grouped into “neighborhoods” of 20 to 30 folks. The association is “significantly better for collaboration,” in Suleyman’s phrases.

“Everybody can see everybody else who’s in,” he advised BI. “It simply creates much more casual collaboration. It’s so significantly better.”

Most of Suleyman’s AI crew at Microsoft relies in Silicon Valley slightly than on the firm’s Redmond, Washington headquarters. Suleyman himself splits his time between Silicon Valley and Redmond, emphasizing that there’s “enormous expertise density” in Silicon Valley and describing it as “the place to be” for his work and crew.

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Different Microsoft groups exterior of Suleyman’s which are engaged on AI have much less strict in-person workplace mandates. The Cloud and AI group beneath Microsoft Government Vice President (EVP) Scott Guthrie has no particular return-to-office necessities, whereas the CoreAI group beneath EVP Jay Parikh will implement a three-day-a-week in-office guideline in February, per BI.

It’s unclear how many individuals are on Suleyman’s AI crew, although leaked organizational charts present he had no less than 17 direct studies as of final month. Suleyman joined Microsoft in March 2024 from Inflection AI, a $4 billion AI startup he co-founded in March 2022. He was beforehand the co-founder of AI lab DeepMind, which Google acquired in 2014 for greater than $500 million.

Final week, Microsoft introduced that it’ll kind a brand new superintelligence crew beneath Suleyman tasked with conducting superior AI analysis and growing AI smarter than essentially the most clever human minds, in direct competitors with Meta’s superintelligence group. Suleyman mentioned in a weblog publish that he needs Microsoft’s superintelligence crew “to be the world’s greatest place to analysis and construct AI.”

Microsoft just lately mandated that staff come into the workplace in particular person three days every week beginning in February 2026 — however for workers on Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman’s crew, working in particular person for a lot of the week is already the norm.

In response to a report launched earlier this week from Enterprise Insider, Suleyman requires staff on his crew who reside close to an workplace to be there no less than 4 days every week. Suleyman is the top of Microsoft AI, a division targeted on Copilot and different shopper AI merchandise and analysis. Executives who report on to Suleyman should approve all exceptions to the in-office rule.