Microsoft has selected Pavan Davuluri to lead its Windows operating system and Surface devices teams, the company said on Monday (25 March).

Davuluri is a company veteran who joined Microsoft in 2001 and was appointed corporate vice president in 2021. 

Former Windows and Surface lead, Panos Panay, left Microsoft in 2023 to head up hardware at Amazon. 

Following Panay’s departure, Microsoft split the Windows and Surface teams under two different leaders. Davuluri took on new responsibilities leading the Surface team, while Mikhail Parakhin led a new team focused on Windows. 

The Windows and Surface devices teams will now be made whole again, as Parakhin has reportedly “decided to explore new roles”.

Rajesh Jha, Microsoft’s head of experiences and devices, said in an internal memo seen by Wired that joining the teams “will enable us to take a holistic approach to building silicon, systems, experiences, and devices that span Windows client and cloud for this AI era.”

The news comes just days after Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman joined Microsoft as the CEO of its new AI team. The tech giant also brought on a group of Inflection AI employees, including co-founder Karén Simonyan.

Most of Inflection AI’s staff will join Microsoft AI in a unique talent acquisition, which many have speculated has been done carefully to avoid regulatory scrutiny.