Now that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has appointed a new CEO to run Microsoft’s biggest businesses, he has a little more time for other tasks. In addition to focusing on Microsoft’s tech work, Nadella is now turning to the ancient art of blogging to discuss Microsoft’s upcoming year and why he thinks everyone needs to move “beyond logic.” [AI] Sloppiness vs. sophistication.”
Nadella’s first blog entry in “SN Scratchpad” is about Microsoft and other AI companies still needing to get a lot of things done with AI. Chief among them is creating a new concept for AI that develops the “bicycle for the brain” concept that Steve Jobs used in the 90s to describe computers as tools. “We need to go beyond the arguments of sloppiness versus sophistication and develop a new balance in terms of our ‘theory of mind’ that is responsible for equipping humans with these new cognitive amplifying tools,” Nadella says.
Nadella wants to move beyond the usual AI slope arguments, as Microsoft is betting on connecting everyone to AI agents rather than the Office and Windows software that has driven many industries for decades.
This reflects the tension with AI models right now and the fear of creative people being left out due to AI models being able to copy the style of artists, designers, filmmakers and others. We’ve been using PCs as tools for making art, writing code, and beyond for decades, but Microsoft and others now want us to rely on AI agents as new tools for creation — even if much of what’s generated is haphazard.
Microsoft’s vision is for everyone to use Copilot with our voices to create content, find information, and learn how to use things. The problem is that this approach doesn’t match reality right now, and none of what Copilot promises to do actually works.
Microsoft is betting on better AI models to help Copilot and its own AI offerings, as Meta warns that you can no longer trust your eyes to tell you what’s real. While Nadella has been part of the OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic AI model wars of 2025, he now argues that it is where people choose to implement AI rather than individual model power that ultimately matters.
“When it comes to deploying AI for real-world impact we will evolve from models to systems,” says Nadella. He says these systems need to take into account the social impact they have on people and the planet. “The choices we make about where we apply our scarce energy, compute and talent resources will matter. This is the socio-technical issue about which we need to build consensus.”
Nadella’s first SN Scratchpad blog entry is brief, but it’s about 2026 being a “crucial year for AI.” The same can be said for 2025, but Nadella thinks the industry now has a “clear understanding of where technology is going” and how it will impact the world. We’ll have to revisit whether the tech industry gets AI right this year as 2027 comes around, but Nadella is now promising to deliver his personal “notes on advancements in the technology and real-world impact” in future blog posts throughout 2026.
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