Sarah Bird

Responsible AI innovation at Microsoft is built on three pillars: forward-looking innovation, clear governance, and practical engineering. That’s where Sarah Bird comes in — she leads Microsoft’s responsible AI engineering efforts, accelerating AI adoption and impact by integrating research, product, and policy. Her team develops and applies responsible AI principles, standards, and tools across the company, and she’s played a central role in building Microsoft Copilot and GitHub Copilot, among other key products. Bird and her team also developed Azure AI Content Safety, Prompt Shields, Groundedness Detection, Safety Evaluations and the Responsible AI Dashboard to help customers deploy and monitor AI safety. A founding member of Microsoft’s first responsible AI research group, Bird also contributed to the Microsoft Responsible AI Standard and serves on the AETHER committee. Before joining Microsoft, she helped launch the AI ethics group at Facebook. She holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Berkeley, where she studied under Turing Award winner Dave Patterson. As the New York site lead for engineering and research, Bird is passionate about advancing responsible AI and growing the city’s tech ecosystem. Her team is setting the standard for what responsible AI looks like in practice: safe, fair, and robust. Bird’s passion for this work began in fourth grade, when two women engineers visited her class, sparking a lifelong commitment to mentorship and opening doors for more women in tech.