Microsoft Announces Yet Another AI Reorg

Microsoft told employees today that LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky will now oversee development of Office as well. Why? Apparently, it wasn’t rolling out new AI features to Outlook, Word, Excel and the other Office apps quickly enough.

This is the third major reorg with an AI twist that Microsoft has made since the beginning of 2024. Last March, it acquihired DeepMind and Inflection co-founder Mustafa Suleyman and most of the Inflection team to create a new Microsoft AI organization. And last October, the software giant hired former Meta head of engineering Jay Parikh to be its AI apps czar. It seems that the only solution to Microsoft’s apparent lack of speed with AI–I suspect that most of its customers will tell you it’s moving too fast–is hiring from without.

Yes, LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, which acquired the social networking firm in 2016, and Roslansky is a member of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s senior leadership team. But LinkedIn is independent of Microsoft and is run autonomously.

Less clear is what Roslansky is actually doing now: This news comes from a report in Bloomberg that does not quote the letter to employees that announced the change, and it’s painful short on details. Microsoft doesn’t even call the product line–which Bloomberg described as a “bundle”–Office anymore, it’s called the Microsoft 365 apps.

Here’s how the publication describes things.

“The chief of Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn is taking charge of the teams that build email and productivity apps, in a reorganization that consolidates more of the company’s workplace software as it seeks to speed up deployment of artificial intelligence tools. Ryan Roslansky, the professional networking site’s chief executive officer since 2020, will tack on responsibility for the teams behind Outlook, Word, Excel, and the rest of the Office bundle, Microsoft told employees on Wednesday. He’ll report to Rajesh Jha, a top engineering executive whose organization includes Windows and business software. In Roslansky’s capacity as LinkedIn CEO, he’ll continue to report to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.”

Based on this, it appears that Roslansky isn’t running all of Microsoft 365, but rather the Microsoft 365 apps that were previously branded as Microsoft Office. (Which is/was a suite, not a bundle.)

Microsoft also apparently announced internally that Dynamics 365 corporate vice president Charles Lamanna will join Jha’s organization too. He previously reported to Scott Guthrie.

Fortunately, Roslansky has since provided additional information on, wait for it, LinkedIn. Well, not that much information.

“While I continue to be the CEO of LinkedIn, an independent subsidiary of Microsoft, I’ll also be stepping into a broader role, leading Microsoft Office and M365 Copilot,” he writes. So I guess we’re calling it Office again. “Office is one of the most iconic product suites in history. It has shaped how the world works, literally. The reach and impact of Office are unmatched. I’m coming into this role in a new, exciting era. Productivity, connection, and AI are converging at scale. Both Office and LinkedIn are used daily by professionals globally and I’m looking forward to redefining ourselves in this new world.”

I can only assume we’ll learn more soon. If that internal email ever shows up, I’ll add it here.