Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman says superintelligence is near but won't steal your job

In a recent interview on The Verge's Decoder podcast, Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, laid out his vision for superintelligence and its impact on the workforce. He explained that Microsoft has significantly restructured its AI operations since a new contract with OpenAI was finalized in October 2025. That deal deepened the partnership but also freed Microsoft to independently pursue superintelligence. Suleyman has since assembled a dedicated “Superintelligence team” and built clusters large enough to train frontier models. At the Microsoft Build developer conference, the company unveiled seven new models spanning multiple modalities, signaling a major push into cutting-edge AI.

Suleyman emphasized that superintelligence will not lead to mass job loss; instead, AI will augment human work. He also criticized Anthropic and others for anthropomorphizing models like Claude, calling it 'dangerous' to treat AI as conscious. The interview covered consumer AI sentiment, political pushback, and Microsoft's evolving relationship with OpenAI, which Suleyman described as 'one of the most successful partnerships in history' that is entering a new phase. His remarks offer a nuanced counterpoint to fears about AI-driven unemployment while positioning Microsoft as a serious contender in the race for superintelligence.