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Trevor Back

Trevor Back is an AI product leader whose work carries machine-learning research into health, protein science and multimodal products. He earned a first-class MPhys in physics with astrophysics at Leicester and completed a computational astrophysics PhD at Edinburgh before becoming DeepMind’s first product manager in 2012. At DeepMind, he was a founding member of DeepMind Health, launched products including AlphaFold, helped form Isomorphic Labs, and coauthored Nature papers on retinal diagnosis, acute kidney injury and protein structure. After founding Shift Lab, he became chief product officer at Speechmatics. By October 2025, he was among Microsoft AI team members discussing Mico; as of October 2026, he is a product manager and Product Lead for MAI multimodal research, leading launches of MAI-Image, MAI-Transcribe and MAI-Voice.

Now at
Microsoft
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Links
X and LinkedIn

Timeline

  1. 2009–2012

    MPhys and astrophysics PhD

    He earns a first-class MPhys in physics with astrophysics at the University of Leicester. From 2009 to 2012, he works with Avery Meiksin at the University of Edinburgh on a computational astrophysics PhD about the effects of reionisation on the stability of minihalos.

  2. 2012

    DeepMind’s first product manager

    In 2012, he is DeepMind’s first product manager and a founding member of DeepMind Health. Over nine years there, he grows his team more than twelvefold.

  3. 2018

    Retinal disease diagnosis paper

    In 2018, he coauthors the Nature Medicine paper “Clinically applicable deep learning for diagnosis and referral in retinal disease.”

  4. 2019

    Predicting acute kidney injury

    In 2019, he is one of four authors credited with equal contribution to the Nature paper “A clinically applicable approach to continuous prediction of future acute kidney injury.”

  5. 2021

    AlphaFold and Isomorphic Labs

    In 2021, he coauthors the Nature paper “Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold.” During his DeepMind tenure, he builds and launches machine-learning products including AlphaFold and helps form the DeepMind spin-off Isomorphic Labs.

  6. July 2023

    Shift Lab and Speechmatics

    He founds Shift Lab, an intelligence platform, before Speechmatics appoints him chief product officer in July 2023. He leads product strategy and execution and the product development team.

  7. October 2025

    Copilot Sessions and Mico

    In October 2025, he joins Microsoft AI team members at Copilot Sessions in Los Angeles as they comment on the company’s Mico character avatar.

  8. As of October 2026

    Microsoft AI product lead

    At Microsoft AI, he is a product manager and Product Lead for MAI multimodal research, leading launches of MAI-Image, MAI-Transcribe and MAI-Voice models. In July 2026, he describes using MAI audio models in Ode Poetry, a voice experience that recommends poems to listeners.

Career

  1. From 2025Microsoft
  2. From 2023SpeechmaticsChief Product Officer
  3. Google DeepMindProduct Manager
  4. Shift LabFounder

Education

  1. 2012University of EdinburghPhD
  2. University of LeicesterMPhys

From the biography.

  1. Of 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google, 446 work there nowIncludes Trevor Back. Our estimates of where the 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google and Google DeepMind work now: 446 at Google and 452 across 278 other organizations.
  2. Among employers with 30+ full-time cases, OpenAI leads primary technical role H-1B pay at $310,000, and Amazon, Google and Microsoft file 57% of all casesIncludes Microsoft. Across 440,669 certified US H-1B filings from 44 employers (FY2020–FY2026), OpenAI leads primary technical role base pay at $310,000 and xAI leads overall base pay at $290,000.
  3. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Microsoft. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Microsoft. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Trevor Back yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Trevor Back - Product School productschool.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Eric Tittley: Students roe.ac.uk. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Trevor Back build.microsoft.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. DeepMind and Tessian alumni join Speechmatics’ leadership team speechmatics.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Clinically applicable deep learning for diagnosis and referral in retinal disease | Nature Medicine nature.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. A clinically applicable approach to continuous prediction of future acute kidney injury | Nature nature.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold | Nature nature.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. Microsoft AI team members at Copilot Sessions, October 2025 | Alamy alamy.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Cómo la IA lleva la poesía a audiencias más amplias - Source LATAM news.microsoft.com. Checked 21 October 2026.