By Todd Bishop
Publication Date: 2026-03-23 22:32:00
Microsoft is hiring a group of top AI researchers from the Seattle-based Allen Institute for AI and the University of Washington, including former Ai2 CEO Ali Farhadi, GeekWire has learned.
Farhadi, Hanna Hajishirzi, and Ranjay Krishna are expected to join Mustafa Suleyman’s organization at Microsoft while retaining their faculty positions at the UW’s Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering. Also joining is Sophie Lebrecht, the former Ai2 chief operating officer.
The move follows Farhadi’s departure from Ai2, announced March 12. Farhadi had led the Seattle-based nonprofit research institute for more than two and a half years.
Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, narrowed his focus last week from overseeing consumer-oriented Copilot products to leading Microsoft’s Superintelligence team.
The…