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A QUARTER OF A MILLION PEOPLE have gathered to hear Satya Nadella talkabout AI.
It's just after 9 a.m. on a Tuesday in May, and Microsoft's CEO is kicking off the company's annual Build developer conference. Attendees have packed a gleaming new high-rise building at the Seattle Convention Center for his keynote, but they're far outnumbered by those streaming it from around the world. The turnout is no surprise. For months, generative AI software that can create text, images, and other content with humanlike flair has been devouring the tech industry's attention. And, unexpectedly, Microsoft is in the lead.
In fact, Nadella has presided over so many generative AI product unveilings this year that he takes a moment on stage to acknowledge their frenetic pace. “It's not like I came in on January 1 and said, ‘Let's start doing press releases,’” he jokes, wearing a hoodie and high-tops and looking very much like a developer himself. “But it does feel like that.”
Microsoft has been at the forefront of the tech world's AI race because of the landmark partnership Nadella struck with ChatGPT creator OpenAI, which—in return for a reported $13 billion investment—gives the software giant first dibs at the startup's current and upcoming technologies. As the results have begun showing up in new and upcoming versions of Microsoft products, from GitHub to Bing to Excel to Azure, they've greatly boosted the company's standing in relation to peers such as Amazon and Google. For the first time since its 1990s heyday, the company is widely regarded as the pacemaker in technology's next historic wave of change.
SARAH BIRD
RESPONSIBLE AI LEADER FOR AZURE AI AND OPENAI TECHNOLOGIES, MICROSOFT
“Responsible AI is part of the plan from the beginning. We've also focused on how to scale [it] and make sure that it can move quickly.”
KEVIN SCOTT
CTO AND EVP OF Al, MICROSOFT
People were fearful of electricity as we started to deploy it as a ubiquitous technology. You have regulations that are designed to make sure that it's safe, and you see that the technology is mostly beneficial and minimally harmful. Those things need to happen with AI.”
CONFIDENCE GAME
Microsoft's chief scientist, Jaime Teevan, is focusing on user trust.
“The fact that Microsoft even has a leadership position is super important,” says analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy. “If you'd asked me two years ago, ‘Give me 1, 2, and 3 [in AI], I might have put Microsoft at No. 3—or 4.”
Backstage after his Build speech, as another Microsoft executive's presentation about AI-powered cloud applications buzzes in the distance, Nadella leans forward in his seat and stresses that this seeming inflection point has been a long time in the making. Microsoft has been reengineering itself into an AI company for some time—quietly but dramatically. “What happened in the last five months,” he says, “was work of the last 10 years.”
What it leads to could be the capstone of Nadella's already remarkable career. A native of Hyderabad, India, who came to the U.S. on his 21st
