Luis Vargas 

Vice President of AI

Luis Vargas black and white photo

As vice president of AI and senior technical advisor to Kevin Scott, executive vice president of AI and chief technology officer of Microsoft, Luis Vargas sits at the center of the company’s AI efforts.  

Vargas has spent the last fifteen years at Microsoft, initially focused on cloud and enterprise. Seven years ago, Vargas took on the role of technical advisor to Scott, focused on defining and aligning technical strategy across the company. Particularly, he led Microsoft’s multi-year AI at Scale initiative, coordinating efforts across AI infrastructure, platform, models and products to support the development and utilization of AI foundation models. This laid the groundwork for the current AI wave spearheaded by Microsoft. 

Vargas is passionate about the potential for AI to help people live more fulfilling lives and organizations achieve their mission more effectively. He believes that AI will provide equal opportunities to everybody irrespective of their background and language through improved education and accessibility. When he’s not driving clarity and alignment on cross-company aspects related to the AI wave, he’s ideating ways that leverage AI in a wide range of domains, some of which become products e.g., Copilot in Fabric to help data analysts, Copilot in Word to help authors and Speak for Me to help people who have lost their voice to recover it.  

Vargas holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Cambridge University and is originally from Mexico. 

In his free time, Vargas enjoys spending time with his wife and two young daughters, near Seattle. He’s an avid reader of science and technology books, and a competitive video game player.  

“AI is a tool, the most powerful tool created by humans,” Vargas says. “As a tool, humans are in control, deciding how to use it, and guiding and approving its output.” 

Top Topics: 

  • Microsoft empowering people and organizations through AI in its products  
  • Microsoft empowering people and organizations to use AI in their own scenarios through its platform  
  • The opportunity for AI for individuals and companies, across productivity, business, education, healthcare, accessibility and others 
  • AI technical/business strategy across infrastructure/platform/models/products 
  • Getting to the current AI wave, getting the most out of it and preparing for the next one 

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