Microsoft is bringing together Surface and Windows under single team again

Microsoft is reorganizing its Windows and Surface teams under a single leader, Pavan Davuluri, in a move that is a “holistic approach” to building silicon, systems, experiences, and devices for the AI era.

The changes come after Panos Panay’s surprise departure to Amazon last year, which had split the Windows and Surface groups under two different leaders  

• Davuluri overseeing Surface silicon and devices, and 
• Mikhail Parakhin leading a new team focused on Windows and web experiences.

In an internal memo obtained by The Verge, Rajesh Jha, Microsoft’s head of experiences and devices, announced that both Windows and Surface will now fall under Davuluri’s responsibility, as Parakhin “has decided to explore new roles.” Personally, I am gutted by this move. Mikhail Parakhin is a very active person on the internet, sharing insightful information all the time; I hope we get something similar from Davuluri or maybe his team. 

The reorganization comes just days after former Inflection AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman joined Microsoft as the CEO of a new AI team that will handle the company’s consumer-facing AI products like Copilot, Bing, and Edge.

According to Jha’s memo, the Windows team will work together with the Microsoft AI team on AI, silicon, and experiences, but there could be potential overlaps as the AI team now looks after Edge, a key part of the Windows experience.

Davuluri, who has worked at Microsoft for over 23 years and was deeply involved in the company’s work with Qualcomm and AMD to create custom Surface processors, will report directly to Jha.