Microsoft moves communications under Brad Smith and its legal affairs arm

Communications moves under CELA

Microsoft is moving its communications group out of marketing and into Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs (CELA), the organization that handles the company's legal and policy work, according to The Verge. The surprise restructuring, announced in an internal memo from CEO Satya Nadella, places vice chair and president Brad Smith in charge of the communications function.

The change comes as Frank Shaw, Microsoft's chief communications officer, prepares to leave the company later this year. Shaw announced earlier this month that he is departing after nearly three decades at Microsoft, and Nadella's memo credits him with more than 17 years of contributions to the communications function and describes him as a source of counsel to the leadership team. No permanent successor has been chosen, and The Verge reports that Microsoft is considering both internal and external candidates.

Who is running the transition

Smith takes over responsibility for communications from chief marketing officer Takeshi Numoto. Smith has long been the most visible public face of Microsoft's policy and corporate messaging, regularly traveling to meet governments, regulators, and customers around the world, which makes the CELA placement a natural extension of the role he already plays.

In the interim, Brent Colburn, vice president of global public affairs, will serve as interim communications leader while continuing to report to Smith. The communications leadership team will report to Colburn, and Shaw will stay on to advise both during the handover.

Nadella points toward a new communications model

In the memo, Nadella frames the change against a media landscape he characterizes as increasingly splintered and loud, arguing that Microsoft needs to stay grounded in its mission and find new ways to connect directly with its audiences. A central piece of his plan is pushing storytelling out to the people closest to the work: he writes that engineers, sellers, partners, and others near the products and customers should become a much bigger part of how Microsoft tells its story.

The Verge notes that GeekWire sees a parallel to how AI startups operate, with researchers at companies like OpenAI and Anthropic leading demos and writing the announcement posts themselves. The comparison is pointed, because Microsoft is competing directly with those labs. Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman told The Verge earlier this year that he wants Microsoft to be counted among the world's top four AI labs and to build the strongest frontier models anywhere.

Why it matters

Where a function sits in an org chart signals what a company believes it is for. Pulling communications out of marketing and attaching it to the legal and policy arm suggests Microsoft now sees its most important audiences as governments and regulators rather than only customers and press, and it consolidates message control in the executive who already manages antitrust scrutiny and AI policy across multiple jurisdictions.

The stated intent to let engineers and sellers speak more directly also mirrors how frontier AI labs communicate, and it could change the texture of Microsoft's public announcements over time. With no permanent comms chief named and a busy fall of product events ahead, the interim structure under Smith and Colburn will get an immediate test.