UK clears Microsoft's partnership with Inflection AI

(Reuters) - Britain's competition regulator, on Wednesday, cleared Microsoft's hiring of some former staff of Inflection AI and its partnership with the startup and said the deal did not required a deeper investigation.

The Competition and Markets Authority began a probe in July to examine if the deal might lead to competition concerns in the country since both companies develop and supply consumer chatbots.

The CMA said that even before being bought, Inflection had a small portion of UK visits for chatbots and AI tools and, unlike its rivals, couldn't significantly grow or maintain its chatbot users.

In March, Microsoft hired Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Google DeepMind, as head of its newly-created AI unit. It also hired a number of employees from Inflection, which he set up in 2022.

Reuters reported that Microsoft had agreed to pay about $650 million as part of the deal, which gave it access to Inflection's AI models and enabled the startup to reimburse its investors, who include former Bill Gates and Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

(Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Savio D'Souza)