Microsoft Executives Discuss How AI Will Change Windows, Programming -- and Society

'Windows is evolving into an agentic OS,' Microsoft's president of Windows Pavan Davuluri posted on X.com, 'connecting devices, cloud, and AI to unlock intelligent productivity and secure work anywhere.'

But former Uber software engineer and engineering manager Gergely Orosz was unimpressed. 'Can't see any reason for software engineers to choose Windows with this weird direction they are doubling down on. So odd because Microsoft has building dev tools in their DNA... their OS doesn't look like anything a builder who wants OS control could choose. Mac or Linux it is for devs.'

Davuluri 'has since disabled replies on his original post...' notes the blog Windows Central, 'which some people viewed as an attempt to shut out negative feedback.' But he also replied to that comment...

Davuluri says 'we care deeply about developers. We know we have work to do on the experience, both on the everyday usability, from inconsistent dialogs to power user experiences. When we meet as a team, we discuss these pain points and others in detail, because we want developers to choose Windows...' The good news is Davuluri has confirmed that Microsoft is listening, and is aware of the backlash it's receiving over the company's obsession with AI in Windows 11. That doesn't mean the company is going to stop with adding AI to Windows, but it does mean we can also expect Microsoft to focus on the other things that matter too, such as stability and power user enhancements.


Elsewhere on X.com, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shared his own thoughts on 'the net benefit of the AI platform wave.' The Times of India reports:

Nadella said tech companies should focus on building AI systems that create more value for the people and businesses using them, not just for the companies that make the technology. He cited Bill Gates to emphasize the same: 'A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it exceeds the value of the company that creates it.'Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to Nadella's post with a facepalm emoji.

Nadella said this idea matters even more during the current AI boom, where many firms risk giving away too much of their own value to big tech platforms. 'The real question is how to empower every company out there to build their own AI-native capabilities,' he wrote. Nadella says Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI is an example of zero-sum mindset industry... [He also cited Microsoft's 'work to bring AMD into the fleet.']

More from Satya Nadella's post:

Thanks to AI, the [coding] category itself has expanded and may ultimately become one of the largest software categories. I don't ever recall any analyst ever asking me about how much revenue Visual Studio makes! But now everyone is excited about AI coding tools. This is another aspect of positive sum, when the category itself is redefined and the pie becomes 10x what it was! With GitHub Copilot we compete for our share and with GitHub and Agent HQ we also provide a platform for others.

Of course, the real test of this era won't be when another tech company breaks a valuation record. It will be when the overall economy and society themselves reach new heights. When a pharma company uses AI in silico to bring a new therapy to market in one year instead of twelve. When a manufacturer uses AI to redesign a supply chain overnight. When a teacher personalizes lessons for every student. When a farmer predicts and prevents crop failure.That's when we'll know the system is working.

Let us move beyond zero-sum thinking and the winner-take-all hype and focus instead on building broad capabilities that harness the power of this technology to achieve local success in each firm, which then leads to broad economic growth and societal benefits.
And every firm needs to make sure they have control of their own destiny and sovereignty vs just a press release with a Tech/AI company or worse leak all their value through what may seem like a partnership, except it's extractive in terms of value exchange in the long run.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.