Satya Nadella used a new post on his snscratchpad site to push back on the shorthand critics use for large language models and other generative tools, arguing the conversation needs to shift from labels to practical effects.
In the post, Nadella wrote that 2026 will be a key year for AI and that the industry is moving “past the initial phase of discovery and [into] a phase of widespread diffusion.” He framed the current moment as one where people should separate “spectacle” from meaningful capability and then decide how to apply the technology to real problems.
One of the post’s clearest lines takes direct aim at a popular insult: “We need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication and develop a new equilibrium in terms of our ‘theory of the mind’ that accounts for humans being equipped with these new cognitive amplifier tools as we relate to each other.” That sentence is central to his point that the debate over whether AI is “good” or “bad” is less useful than deciding how to deploy it.
Nadella also argued for deliberate choices about where to focus compute, talent, and energy so AI can win “societal permission” by showing real-world evaluation impact. He tied that call to wider company priorities – Microsoft has kept investing in AI even as it cut thousands of jobs over the past three years, a context explored in our coverage of recent layoffs.
Whether readers agree with Nadella’s thesis or not, his argument reframes the conversation away from catchy putdowns and toward choices about where AI should be used and how its impact will be measured.
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