The president of tech giant Microsoft said there is no probability of super-intelligent artificial intelligence being created within the next 12 months.

The comments by Brad Smith, also vice chairman, come one year after Microsoft-backed OpenAI released AI chatbot ChatGPT to the public, sparking a flurry of investment and concern such systems could pose an existential threat to humanity.

Recent reports suggested OpenAI founder Sam Altman may have been ousted from the company following internal wranglings over a potentially dangerous AI discovery. However, Smith rejected these claims.

"I don't think that is the case at all," he said, speaking to reporters in Britain on Thursday. "I think there obviously was a divergence between the board and others, but it wasn't fundamentally about a concern like that."

Altman was forced out of OpenAI by the company’s board earlier this month, but was swiftly reappointed after a weekend of public outcry from company employees and shareholders.

Smith added: "There's absolutely no probability that you're going to see this so-called AGI, where computers are more powerful than people, in the next 12 months.

"It's going to take years, if not many decades, but I still think the time to focus on safety is now."