Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been instrumental in driving the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. Contrary to expectations that AI might automate away jobs, Nadella believes that the technology has created a need for leadership with fundamentally human qualities. In a recent interview with Semafor, Nadella emphasized the importance of clarity in ambiguous situations, stating, “You have to know what to do when it is ambiguous, when it is uncertain.” This insight is particularly relevant as Microsoft prepares for its annual Build developer conference, where thousands of software developers are expected to gather.
The software development profession is undergoing an existential crisis due to rapidly improving online coding tools pioneered by Microsoft’s Github Copilot, launched in 2022. Nadella revealed that as much as a third of Microsoft’s software is now written by AI. However, in interviews, Nadella and Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott argued that AI brings paradoxical changes to software development. Despite AI’s growing role, Microsoft plans to hire more software engineers, focusing on their human qualities rather than just technical abilities.
“There’s more to being a human than the last app that you wrote or the little programming trick that you did,” Scott said. He looks for employees who understand human history, social systems, and how large groups of people behave and interact. This shift in focus is not just due to automated software generation but also Microsoft’s broader ambitions to be the foundation for a new era of computing. The company aims to enable autonomous AI “agents” that supercharge human productivity, requiring a new system of online interaction more complex than early internet protocols.
Nadella’s vision for this future has been evolving since he became CEO over a decade ago. His first memo as CEO referenced “ambient intelligence,” where computers operate in the background, carrying out mundane tasks automatically. Although the technology wasn’t ready then, Nadella steered Microsoft toward one of the most profitable journeys in business history, growing its value from $300 billion to $3.4 trillion. About five years ago, he gave Scott the green light to build one of the world’s largest supercomputers to train what would eventually become ChatGPT, marking a significant step toward realizing his long-term plan.
As Microsoft moves into this new phase, the company is also shifting its identity. Currently, applications display the brand name upon opening, and hardware devices showcase corporate logos. Nadella envisions a future where Microsoft products fade into the background while becoming a bigger part of customers’ lives, requiring a kind of humility. “My way of recruiting anyone who’s coming to Microsoft is saying, ‘hey, look, if you want to be cool, go join somebody else. If you want to make others cool, join Microsoft,'” he said.
This shift simplifies the world for Microsoft’s customers but makes the company’s job more complex. It requires human input beyond just clean lines of code. Scott believes that in the AI era, engineers will be defined by their breadth of curiosity and creativity, rather than just their coding skills. “You can quote me on this: Some of the conversations I have with my people right now are just so goddamn boring,” he said, highlighting the need for developers to fully leverage existing AI capabilities.
Nadella sees the transition to AI as a new way for humans to perform knowledge work, with Microsoft needing to adapt to remain relevant. He uses the metaphor of an alien observer seeing office workers in the 1980s and today. Initially, they would see typists and people making physical presentations. Upon returning today, they’d see everyone in front of computer screens and might conclude that humans have become typists. In the AI future, where ambient intelligence is the norm, humans might appear aimless without physical artifacts, but in reality, they’re just using the latest tools available.
The changes in software engineering parallel the transformation in the media industry over the past two decades. As publishing became democratized with the web and social media, the power and profitability shifted from content creation to building the infrastructure that enabled it. Similarly, as software development becomes ubiquitous with AI tools, the focus will shift to building the platforms that allow people to create customized software. This presents an opportunity for companies like Microsoft to become the underlying platform enabling this change, though it requires addressing the complex systems and regulatory challenges involved in creating what Microsoft calls the “agentic web.”
