Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of the company's AI assistant Copilot and decided to personally get involved in the improvements. Several weeks ago, Nadella sent an email to the engineering manager responsible for the consumer version of Copilot, in which he bluntly pointed out that Copilot's integration with Gmail and Outlook was "basically not working" and that it lacked sufficient intelligence.
This is not Nadella's first complaint. Over the past few months, he has almost become the company's chief product manager. In September, Nadella announced that he would outsource some responsibilities and focus on developing AI products, handing many business functions over to the new "Chief Business Officer," Judson Althoff.
According to reports, Nadella is now deeply involved in technical work. He is very active in an internal Teams channel with about 100 top engineers, and when he encounters AI product issues, he posts detailed criticism. At weekly meetings, he raises questions about employees' work and gives specific instructions, such as requiring different teams to integrate their training processes in the later stages.
In addition, Nadella directly sends bug reports to the product team of consumer chatbots. In a Teams channel during the summer, he became frustrated with Microsoft's failure to quickly launch new features for complex Excel functions. Nadella and his deputies, including Executive Vice President Rajesh Jha, believe that the AI in Office365 has not yet fulfilled its promise of effectively automating work. Their goal is for Copilot subscriptions to serve as "digital assistants," handling tasks similar to those of administrative assistants.
To address technical shortcomings, Nadella is actively hiring talent, personally calling potential candidates and offering high salaries to attract top talent from OpenAI and Google's DeepMind. At the same time, he is paying more attention to collaboration with AI developers, such as with Anthropic, to enhance Microsoft's products.
At internal meetings, Nadella reminded employees of the company's strategic mistakes in areas such as internet search, smartphones, and tablets in the past, emphasizing that this is a crucial moment for determining the company's future. The dissatisfaction with Copilot has long been evident, and the company's vague statements about business metrics have also raised doubts about its actual contribution to performance.
