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Julia Beizer, the chief operating officer at Bloomberg Media, is departing the organization after eight years to take up a leadership position at Microsoft. In her new role, she will oversee the company’s AI-driven news initiatives and report to Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, sources familiar with the transition have confirmed.
Beizer verified her exit from Bloomberg this month but chose not to discuss her upcoming responsibilities at Microsoft. The tech giant did not respond to inquiries about the hire.
Reflecting on her tenure, Beizer noted that she is concluding eight remarkable years with the company. She first arrived at Bloomberg Media in 2018 as chief product officer, advanced to chief digital officer, and assumed the COO position in July 2024.
Bloomberg Media CEO Karen Saltser praised Beizer’s contributions in a statement, highlighting her efforts in expanding the subscription base to over 700,000 paying members. Saltser expressed deep appreciation for Beizer’s seven-year impact on building a thriving business that now serves a vast audience. She added that the team is primed for further growth in readership and revenue, extending best wishes for Beizer’s future endeavors.
At Microsoft, Beizer steps into a pivotal role managing AI news features integrated across its various platforms. The company rolled out Copilot Daily earlier this year, offering audio recaps of daily news and weather drawn from established sources such as Reuters, Axel Springer, and the Financial Times.
Building on that momentum, Microsoft introduced the Publisher Content Marketplace in September, positioning itself as the pioneering major tech firm to create an AI-focused platform connecting publishers with data usage opportunities. Select media organizations, including Condé Nast, have received invitations to join this bidirectional system, which compensates outlets for licensing their content to enhance Copilot’s capabilities. This move signals Microsoft’s intent to strengthen ties with the publishing sector amid evolving dynamics in its investment partnership with OpenAI, where it holds the largest minority stake.
Big tech has a track record of recruiting seasoned media professionals to foster collaborations with news outlets. For instance, Google brought on Madhav Chinnappa, ex-BBC media strategy director, in 2010 to drive European news partnerships. Similarly, Meta tapped former journalist Campbell Brown in 2017 to helm its worldwide media outreach.
News publishers have long pushed for fair remuneration from AI developers scraping their content, yet advancements remain slow. Experimental pay-per-crawl programs and isolated licensing deals have delivered minimal financial gains, often benefiting high-profile entities at the expense of independent creators.
Microsoft has earned recognition for proactively testing marketplace models to address these issues. With Beizer at the helm of its AI news projects, the company appears set to accelerate these partnerships and refine its approach to content integration.
