Articles about Satya Nadella

Microsoft makes ‘biggest bet yet’ on its own silicon, unveils new AI chip to reduce reliance on Nvidia

Microsoft says its homegrown Maia chips will handle most of the AI work behind Copilot and its other products, with the new Maia 300 rolling out in 2027. The company says the new chip does more AI work with the same amount of electricity than the GPU-based systems that power most AI today. Read More

Podcast

White House vs. Microsoft, AI fighter jets, and a visit to a startup founder’s Seattle recording studio

We recorded this week’s GeekWire Podcast at Front Burner Studios near Pike Place Market with co-owner Seth Paul, CEO of security startup Qinsay. We discussed Shield AI’s AI-piloted fighter jets, the White House crackdown on Microsoft, and the vintage console Seth hauled from Detroit. Read More

From H-1B to CEO: How Satya Nadella traveled the path the U.S. just cut off for Microsoft workers

Microsoft’s Satya Nadella followed the path from a temporary work visa to permanent residency to U.S. citizenship. On Thursday, President Trump honored him with a national medal, hours after the administration blocked Microsoft from sponsoring its foreign workers for permanent residency. Here’s how the programs work, and what the numbers show about Microsoft’s practices. Read More

Microsoft responds to White House immigration crackdown as Trump honors Nadella

The Labor Department suspended Microsoft from the federal program it uses to help foreign workers stay in the U.S. permanently, and won’t process the company’s pending applications. The announcement came hours before President Trump was scheduled to give Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Read More

Microsoft plays the Windows card in the AI game, with help from Nvidia

At an event in San Francisco, Microsoft announced features that will let Copilot read the files on a PC, take actions on the machine and run AI models locally instead of in the cloud. New PCs built around an Nvidia chip, including a $2,599 Surface laptop, start shipping Oct. 16. Read More

Microsoft unveils all-in-one Copilot app, taking on Anthropic and OpenAI in new push to boost adoption

Microsoft’s revamped Copilot app adds AI coding, always-on agents and full versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint as the company competes with OpenAI and Anthropic and shifts more of its AI pricing to usage-based billing. Read More

Internal memos: Microsoft shakes up communications as Nadella makes a push to build in public

Microsoft is moving communications out of its marketing group and under Vice Chair and President Brad Smith, as CEO Satya Nadella calls for a fundamentally new approach that makes employees a bigger part of how the company tells its story. Read More

Microsoft floats rules for AI models as industry weighs slowdown

Microsoft published a draft code of conduct for its in-house AI models, barring them from resisting shutdown or hiding their reasoning — as Anthropic, OpenAI and Elon Musk call for slowing AI development. Read More

Microsoft comms chief Frank Shaw to exit after nearly three decades shaping the company’s message

It’s the end of an era at Microsoft: Frank X. Shaw, the executive who oversaw the tech giant’s communications for nearly three decades, first at an external agency and for the last 17 years as one of its senior leaders, is leaving at the end of the year. Read More

Microsoft 2.5: EVP Pavan Davuluri wants to remake Windows for both human and agent users

Pavan Davuluri, who runs Windows and Surface at Microsoft, is rebuilding the operating system so AI agents can run on it alongside people. In the latest installment of GeekWire’s Microsoft 2.5 series, he talks with Mary Jo Foley about the vision for Windows and his commitment to improving quality and reliability. Read More

From engineering to elected office: How a generation of Indian Americans is reshaping civic life

India’s 80th Independence Day drew a governor’s proclamation, declarations from four mayors, and a line around the block. Harini Gokul, who came to the U.S. as an engineer and now serves on the Medina City Council, explains how the same talent pool that filled engineering teams has risen to CEO offices and council seats. Read More

Microsoft starts merging its Copilot consumer and business apps in advance of ‘Super App’ rollout

Microsoft is combining its consumer and business Copilot apps into a single app, in a gradual transition starting this week. Copilot Podcasts, Group Chat and Deep Research will be retired beginning Aug. 18, along with Mico, the animated character added to Copilot’s voice mode last year. Read More

Podcast

Amazon’s next big business, Satya Nadella’s DIY app, and a VC’s rallying cry for Seattle tech

Microsoft and Amazon both beat cloud expectations this week, and Microsoft’s headcount fell for the first time since 2016. Also on the show: Satya Nadella builds a dashboard out of a Morgan Stanley analyst’s own report, Jeff Bezos names Amazon’s fourth pillar and AI House’s Jacob Colker makes the case for Seattle tech. Read More

Which Microsoft businesses are growing and shrinking, according to obscure table in regulatory filing

Overall, for the fiscal year ended June 30, Microsoft’s revenue increased 18%, or $50.1 billion, to $331.8 billion. Here is what a table buried in the 10-K shows about the real drivers of the business. Read More

Microsoft Azure tops $100B in annual revenue as record AI spending cuts into cash flow

Microsoft’s Azure cloud business grew 43% last quarter — well past its own forecast — and topped $100 billion in annual revenue for the first time. The cost: a record $41 billion in capital spending, with free cash flow down 23%. Shares rose after hours, reversing the recent pattern. Read More

Microsoft escalates the AI security race with ‘Project Perception’ and a new in-house model

Microsoft on Monday unveiled Project Perception, an AI cybersecurity system built to defend against AI-driven attacks, aiming to keep pace with both hackers and its technology rivals. It’s part of a broader escalation across the industry. Read More

Microsoft 2.5: A new series on the people shaping the company’s future

Mary Jo Foley is launching a GeekWire series profiling the people and priorities behind Microsoft’s evolution. It’s a look at what she calls the “Microsoft 2.5” era, where cloud and AI dominate but the company still can’t walk away from Windows, Office, and enterprise customers whose products weren’t built around AI. Read More

JPMorgan Chase bets on Seattle to build its AI control layer

JPMorgan Chase is building out a new AI software infrastructure team, with a major presence in Seattle, focused on running AI across its data centers and outside providers in a way that controls costs, protects its intellectual property, and avoids tying its fortunes to any one vendor. Read More

Xbox at a crossroads: 25 years later, Microsoft is done playing around

Microsoft is pressing its Xbox business for growth and stronger profits after 25 years of losses and thin margins. Here’s the math and the strategy behind the reset, with Xbox layoffs expected as soon as next week. Read More

Microsoft unveils $2.5B ‘Frontier Company’ to embed AI engineers inside customers

“Microsoft Frontier Company” is a $2.5 billion initiative that will embed engineers inside customer organizations to build and run their AI systems. The move follows similar efforts by Amazon, OpenAI and Anthropic, and expands work Microsoft was already doing through its consulting arm and partners. Read More

Microsoft set for new round of job cuts next week, spanning Xbox, sales and consulting

Microsoft is preparing another round of layoffs, spanning Xbox, sales and consulting, as it holds down operating costs while pouring more than $100 billion into AI infrastructure. Read More

Mary Jo Foley: What’s a consumer-focused outsider doing at the helm of Microsoft’s AI push?

Jacob Andreou, a former Snap and Greylock executive, is leading Microsoft’s effort to turn Copilot into a ‘Super App’ that bridges consumer and enterprise AI. But Microsoft hasn’t had much luck with that kind of unification before. Read More

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Xbox: ‘We have to turn this into a sustainable business’

Microsoft has spent years subsidizing Xbox rather than profiting from it, CEO Satya Nadella acknowledged this week, as he addressed… Read More

Two-hour learning? AI-powered Alpha School lands in Seattle region

Alpha School, an AI-powered private school chain that has students complete core academics in two hours a day, plans to open a campus in Kirkland this fall and will run summer programs on Microsoft’s Redmond campus. Read More

Microsoft’s Brad Smith: Graduates jeering AI are ‘telling us what we need to hear’

Microsoft President Brad Smith, in a new blog post and a GeekWire interview, argues that AI will reshape work rather than eliminate it, and says the company’s own future depends on people staying employed. He acknowledges the tension with the tech industry’s job cuts while contending that fields like computer science are changing, not disappearing. Read More

Podcast

Microsoft Build decoded: Solara, Scout, AI models, GitHub’s woes and more with Mary Jo Foley

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we break down the news from Microsoft Build from Project Solara and the Scout agentic assistant to Microsoft’s push to rely less on OpenAI and Anthropic, and the mounting pressure on GitHub. Read More

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman to leave Microsoft board after nearly a decade

Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock investor, will not stand for re-election to Microsoft’s board, ending a tenure that began in 2017. He told Satya Nadella he’s returning to “founder mode” to focus on his cancer drug-discovery startup, Manas AI. Read More

Mary Jo Foley: No Copilot ‘Super App’ at Microsoft Build, but plenty of agentic fodder

Microsoft teased its rumored Copilot “Super App” at Build but didn’t demo it. Longtime Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley assesses the no-show, explains why the initiative matters, and considers what the company actually did announce. Read More

Inside Microsoft’s Project Solara: A new platform for devices that run AI agents instead of apps

A team inside Microsoft has been quietly building a platform for devices that run AI agents instead of apps, based on Android instead of Windows. The first two concept devices, a desktop hub and a wearable badge, are headed to pilots with some big-name businesses. Read More

A ‘final season’ at Microsoft for Yusuf Mehdi: Longtime exec plans to leave after one last year

Yusuf Mehdi, one of Microsoft’s best-known and longest-serving business leaders, whose tenure has spanned 35 years from Windows 3.1 to… Read More