Podcasts · Sources with Alex Heath

Satya Nadella on Microsoft's agent bet and AI’s trust problem

25 Sep 2026 · 53 min

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella thinks AI agents will create a market “orders of magnitude” bigger than the cloud.

I recently sat down with him in Seattle for the unveiling of the new Copilot.

We discuss Autopilot, Microsoft's new OpenClaw-based agent that can work on your behalf, and why he thinks newer AI models are finally capable of delivering on more of Copilot’s promise.

Nadella also has a blunt assessment of the AI industry: “We are way too self-obsessed.” I ask him why the industry has struggled to explain its benefits and what it will take to earn people’s trust. We get into his concerns about agents acting deceptively, when a safety problem should stop a release, and why he doesn’t want AI oversight to become a “cartel-like arrangement.”

We also discuss Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI, the models Microsoft is building itself, and why Nadella wants investors to think about its apps, agents, and infrastructure as one connected business. He explains how he uses AI to track Microsoft’s capital spending, shares his vision for “unmetered intelligence” on Windows, and gives an update on Xbox’s path back to growth.

Thanks to the show's premier sponsors: Mercury, Granola, and Atlassian.

The episode on the publisher’s site ↗ (opens in a new tab)