Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella believes that artificial intelligence has yet to find a “killer app” capable of transforming the global economy in the same way that email and Excel did.
Speaking on Dwarkesh Patel’s YouTube show, Nadella, who leads the tech giant, argued that the true measure of AI’s success lies not in achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) – the hypothetical creation of machines with human-level cognitive abilities or even beyond – but in its ability to boost a nation’s gross domestic product.
“Us self-claiming some AGI milestone, that’s just nonsensical benchmark hacking,” Nadella stated, criticizing the focus on achieving AGI milestones as a pointless exercise. Instead, he thinks a better benchmark for AI’s success should be its ability to boost a country’s gross domestic product. “When we say: ‘Oh, this is like the industrial revolution,’ let’s have that industrial revolution type of growth. That means to me, 10 percent, seven percent for the developed world. Inflation adjusted, growing at five percent, that’s the real marker.”
Nadella pointed out that few countries experienced such growth in 2024. He suggested the delay in generating significant economic impact stems from people’s slow adoption and evolving approach to applying AI tools effectively, drawing parallels to the early days of personal computers. He explained how processes transformed with the introduction of technologies such as email and spreadsheets, citing the evolution of forecasting within multinational corporations as an example.
“Just imagine how a multinational corporation like us did forecasts pre-PC, and email, and spreadsheets. Faxes went around, somebody then got those faxes and then did an inter-office memo that then went around, and people entered numbers, and then ultimately a forecast came out maybe just in time for the next quarter,” Nadella explained.
“Then somebody said: ‘Hey, I’m just going to take an Excel spreadsheet, put it in an email, send it around, people will go edit it, and I’ll have a forecast.’ The entire forecasting business process changed because the work artifact and the workflow changed. That is what needs to happen with AI being introduced into knowledge work,” the CEO said.
Despite the significant investments Microsoft and others are making in AI infrastructure, investors might find Nadella’s perspective concerning, given that the technology hasn’t yet found its niche. However, Nadella clarified that he doesn’t anticipate AI replacing knowledge workers outright, even after finding its place in the workplace. He emphasizes that AI agents will allow workers to focus on higher-value tasks, rather than getting bogged down in administrative details.
“Don’t conflate knowledge worker with knowledge work,” he said. “The knowledge work of today could probably be automated, [but] who said my life’s goal is to triage my email?”
It remains to be seen whether this shift will materialize or if companies will utilize AI to reduce costs.
Even if the hypothetical “AI superintelligence” becomes a reality, Nadella doesn’t expect them to replace humans due to legal complexities, stating that AI can’t be deployed without human indemnification.
