Microsoft picks company veteran Pavan Davuluri

Microsoft said Monday it has selected company veteran Pavan Davuluri to lead its Windows operating system and Surface devices teams.

Davuluri, who joined Microsoft in 2001 and has been corporate vice president for almost three years, is taking on additional responsibilities after Panos Panay decamped to Amazon

 last fall.

Windows remains critical to Microsoft. Its clients take into consideration their reliance on Windows when deciding which cloud infrastructure to use for information-technology projects. That’s true even as Microsoft and other public companies adjust their stance to capitalize on interest in generative artificial intelligence.

Davuluri’s promotion comes a week after Microsoft said it was hiring former DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman as the head of a new organization called Microsoft AI. Mikhail Parakhin, CEO of advertising and web services, and his unit that includes people working on the Bing search engine and Edge browser, will be part of Microsoft AI, the company said.