When Sebastian Bubeck, Microsoft’s VP of generative AI research, left to work for OpenAI, the company lost an AI expert and gained one
The Information was the first to report the move, and Reuters also confirmed with Microsoft that the person was leaving.
We know Bubeck as one of the key writers of papers about Microsoft’s Phi models. These are a set of very small language and vision models that are meant to help AI apps run on edge devices. In some markets, on-device models that work quickly, privately, and offline replace big, centralized models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o. This kind of expertise is becoming more and more important.
Even though Bubeck’s new job at OpenAI is still a secret, he’ll work on efficiency and small models, an area of AI where OpenAI isn’t as well known.