Microsoft has announced that Sam Altman, the co-founder and recently ousted chief executive of OpenAI, will be joining the company as a leader of a new AI research team. This move comes after Altman’s recent departure from OpenAI, where he had been working on the development of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence tool.

Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and has integrated its technology into its own products, such as the Bing search engine. According to Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s owner, Altman and Greg Brockman, co-founders of OpenAI, will lead this new AI research team at Microsoft.

Altman responded to the news on social media stating that his mission continues with Microsoft. He thanked everyone who supported him during his time at OpenAI and expressed excitement about what lies ahead for both companies.

The board of directors at OpenAI dismissed Altman on Friday due to lack of consistency in his communication and loss of confidence in his management abilities. Following this decision, several other leading figures at OpenAI also announced their departure from the company. The first version of ChatGPT was launched on November 30th last year marking a significant milestone in the field of artificial intelligence.