Microsoft’s developer division is now all about AI, as its reorgs teams to be ready for a platform shift.
Microsoft is reshaping its developer division with AI in the back of their mind in preparation for a technology transformation. The company is establishing a new AI-focused engineering group headed by Jay Parikh, who used to lead engineering at Meta. CoreAI – Platform and Tools, the new division, will connect Microsoft’s Dev Div and AI platform teams, as well as members of the Office of the CTO, to develop powerful AI tools and platforms for Microsoft and its customers.
The CEO Satya Nadella spoke of this shift in an internal memo and he used a cricket metaphor, saying that “we’re entering the next innings of this AI platform shift” in 2025 that “will completely change all types of software.” In the memo, he said he was going for simplicity and I wanted to give everyone a glimpse of the future of the company. Nadella anticipates a fast-paced rate of AI adoption where “thirty years of revolution are being whittled down to three years.”
This is the world that will change overnight and to be able to navigate this transformation, Nadella reiterated Microsoft need an “AI-first app stack,” which will revolutionize how developers develop and use AI applications. “Azure has to be the infrastructure for AI, and we scale on top of that our AI ecosystem and developer tools (Azure AI Foundry, GitHub, VS Code)”. The intention is to build a system of AI tools and platforms that will drive the next wave of software development, specifically in the areas of SaaS and AI-powered custom applications.
Parikh, who joined Meta more than 10 years ago as an engineer, will be leading this effort as Executive Vice President of CoreAI – Platform and Tools. He has been at Microsoft since October, and this is his first big leadership change in the company. Parikh is directly under Nadella and heads an executive team comprising AI platform head Eric Boyd, AI infrastructure deputy CTO Jason Taylor, developer division head Julia Liuson, and developer infrastructure head Tim Bozarth.
The whole Microsoft developer ecosystem is being refocused on AI and at the core of this shift is Azure AI Foundry, GitHub and VS Code. Although Nadella didn’t explicitly address Visual Studio or.NET in the memo, you can assume that what the new CoreAI team is actually aiming for is a full AI-centric Copilot and application stack for internal and external developers to build and run AI apps and agents.
