Pavan Davuluri Appointed to Lead Microsoft’s Windows and Surface Teams

Microsoft has named Pavan Davuluri as the new head of its combined Windows and Surface teams. This move comes after the previous leader, Panos Panay, left for Amazon last year.

About Pavan Davuluri

Davuluri is a 23-year veteran at Microsoft and has held various leadership roles spanning PC, Xbox, Surface, and Windows. Most recently, he oversaw efforts to optimize Windows for Arm-based processors as the Corporate Vice President of Windows and Silicon & Systems Integration.

Davuluri is a graduate of IIT Madras and the University of Maryland.

The Driving Force Behind the Move

In an internal memo, Microsoft’s Rajesh Jha cited the need for a “holistic approach to building silicon, systems, experiences, and devices…for this AI era” as the driving force behind the move.

Consolidating Windows and Surface Teams

The shakeup consolidates Microsoft’s operating system and devices efforts under one leader for the first time since Panay’s departure. Davuluri will now oversee all aspects of Windows client and cloud experiences, as well as Surface hardware development.

He takes over from Mikhail Parakhin, who had been leading the Windows and web experiences group but is now “exploring new roles” outside the company.

Collaboration with Microsoft’s AI Team

The reorganization paves the way for closer collaboration between the Windows group and Microsoft’s newly formed AI team led by DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman. Suleyman now heads consumer AI initiatives like Copilot, Bing, and the Edge browser.

Microsoft’s Focus on AI

The personnel shifts come as Microsoft doubles down on AI under CEO Satya Nadella. The company recently acquired talent from Inflection AI, including Karén Simonyan as chief AI scientist.

With AI increasingly central to Microsoft’s strategy, unified leadership over key product groups like Windows becomes critical.

Davuluri’s New Role

For the long-time Microsoft employee Davuluri, the new role caps a tenure spanning over two decades and multiple breakthrough projects like driving Arm chip adoption for Windows PCs. Now, he faces the formidable task of steering Windows into an AI-driven future.