Microsoft’s New Security Chief Looks to AI to Fight Hackers: Q&A

Last year, Microsoft Corp. hired a top Amazon.com Inc. cloud-computing executive Charlie Bell to oversee a sprawling cybersecurity empire. His mission was to chart a future course for the security business, which now generates more than $15 billion annually.

Bell reorganized, combining groups scattered across businesses like Azure cloud, Windows and Office and hired some new executives, but the company has also eliminated some open roles as it slows hiring in a weakening economy. He put Microsoft’s world-renowned lab for tracking nation-state and cybercrime gangs together with the company’s cybersecurity research units, under the leadership of John Lambert, a veteran at tracking hackers at Microsoft.

It’s ...