Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
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Next-Generation Technologies & Secure Development
‘Advanced Planning Unit’ to Focus on Societal, Economic, Workplace Implications

Microsoft has created a new research-focused unit as part of its artificial intelligence division to analyze and anticipate the technology’s societal, economic and workplace implications.
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Dubbed the “Advanced Planning Unit,” it will report directly to Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, and will integrate advanced research methodologies to evaluate future AI scenarios.
Job postings for the unit suggest that the responsibilities of its team members will include making strategic product recommendations, forecasting AI-driven trends, and generating publications, events and reports to expand Microsoft’s understanding of AI’s evolving impact.
The Microsoft AI division has become a focal point of the company’s growth ambitions. This shift is not without financial impact: In its latest earnings call, Microsoft disclosed that capital expenditures for the fourth quarter of 2024 reached a record $22.6 billion, an investment that CEO Satya Nadella justified as necessary to sustain the escalating demand for AI and cloud services. “As AI becomes more efficient and accessible, we’ll see exponentially more demand,” he said.
The new unit will also play a role in advising Microsoft’s leadership. The APU will operate across Microsoft AI’s offices in Silicon Valley and London.
In a series of posts on social media, Suleyman said that the APU is recruiting professionals from diverse fields, including economics and psychology, as well as specialists in areas such as quantum computing, nuclear research and semiconductor technology to “capture this hyper-evolutionary space and let us know what’s happening and why it matters. These roles offer an incredible, rare opportunity to dig deep and think imaginatively about AI, working from a vantage point at the cutting edge of AI science and product development,” he said.
The move comes on the heels of Microsoft’s recent internal restructuring to boost its AI capabilities. The company early last year consolidated its developer division and AI platform teams into a new entity called CoreAI – platform and tools. In the blog, Nadella said Microsoft’s ambition was to be “model-forward,” positioning AI advancements at the core of every application category. “As we begin the new year, it’s clear that we’re entering the next innings of this AI platform shift,” he wrote. “Thirty years of change is being compressed into three years!”
Microsoft’s AI strategy aligns with broader industry trends. Key research partner OpenAI hired its first chief economist in late 2023 to examine how AI will reshape the economy and job market. A recent Brookings Institution study found that generative AI could disrupt at least half of the tasks performed by more than 30% of the global workforce. “Despite the high stakes for workers, we are not prepared for the potential risks and opportunities that generative AI is poised to bring,” the study’s co-authors said.