UK regulators on Wednesday cleared Microsoft’s hiring of key staff from startup Inflection AI.
Microsoft’s hiring of almost all of startup Inflection AI’s workers was cleared by UK regulators after an investigation was opened in July.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found that the move was “a relevant merger situation” but would not stifle competition in the UK’s artificial intelligence (AI) market.
Back in March, Microsoft announced that it hired several former Inflection employees, which regulators said “amounted to almost all of Inflection’s team, including two of its co-founders: Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan”.
The UK watchdog said Microsoft also licensed its intellectual property, which gave it access to the startup’s AI model and chatbot development capabilities.
Inflection’s main product is a chatbot named Pi that specialises in “emotional intelligence” by being “kind and supportive”.
However, the CMA said the deal won’t result in a big loss of competition because Inflection has a “very small” share of the UK consumer market for chatbots, and it lacks chatbot features that make it more attractive than rivals.
Big technology companies have been facing scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic lately for gobbling up talent and products at innovative AI startups without formally acquiring them.
Three US Senators called for the practice to be investigated after Amazon pulled a similar manoeuvre this year in a deal with San Francisco-based Adept that sent its CEO and key employees to the e-commerce giant.
Amazon also got a license to Adept’s AI systems and datasets.
