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MD MEETS · 2 min · Nov 29, 2025

AI agents will shift work from execution to steering

Satya Nadella · CEO, Microsoft

He says he sends agents tasks, then returns to reports on progress and requests for guidance.

In this episode

Full episode
  1. 16:32AI gains require redesigning work, not just adding toolsPro pick 5 min
  2. 20:56AI investment must produce broad productivity and GDP growthPro pick 5 min
  3. 25:43Microsoft and OpenAI compete while sharing key infrastructurePro pick 8 min
  4. 0:29Copilot and ChatGPT revealed distinct AI breakthroughs4 min
  5. 10:58Every company needs a model built around what it knows3 min
  6. 13:53AI agents will shift work from execution to steering2 min
  7. 33:47AI firms must earn support for their power use5 min
  8. 44:50Broad AI adoption can matter more than frontier leadership3 min
“I delegate to a bunch of agents every morning. Let's say I get up in the morning and I say to agents, do this work for me.”
Satya Nadellaat 15:00 · MD MEETS
15:00

Takeaways

  1. He describes delegating batches of work to agents each morning.
  2. Agents report progress and where they need his judgment.
  3. He expects a new inbox for managing agent work.

About this segment

He says he sends agents tasks, then returns to reports on progress and requests for guidance. His human role shifts toward steering rather than disappearing.

Satya Nadella

Satya Nadella is CEO of Microsoft.

Led Microsoft's cloud infrastructure and services transformation, and has been CEO since February 2014.

From “Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: AI Boom, Energy Battle & His Complicated Alliance with Sam Altman”, Nov 29, 2025. Watch the full episode

Answers “Which jobs will AI replace, and which are safe?” See all 118 answers

Answers “What will AI look like in the next few years?” See all 148 answers

Answers “Are AI agents ready for real work?” See all 93 answers

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 14:06

    that are unique to us. Satya, do you think that one day there will be companies entirely invented and run by AI or is that startup perhaps already being launched? What do you think? I think that it's sort of too far-fetched for me, Matthias, to sort of imagine. I mean, at some level, you can always say if somebody had said, oh my God, we are going to have these dark factories. When I go to my data center after, by the way, it's been constructed, installed, and it's running, it takes a lot of people to put it together and it's just running autonomously.

  2. 14:42

    So I think there will be levels of automation that will be stunning five years from now, 10 years from now, when we look back at it, but there will be people. I'm much more of a believer that in fact, it's interesting, I'll give you this metaphor. One of the new products that sort of we're building on is I have, let's say, I call this new metaphor or paradigm of how I work with AI as macro delegation and micro steering.

  3. 15:12

    right? So I delegate to a bunch of agents every morning. Let's say I get up in the morning and I say to agents, do this work for me. And then I just, sorry, no problem. And they go off and do their work. Guess what? They come back and report to me, right? I mean, at the end of the day, they'll say, oh, I got this done. I got stuck here. I need your guidance here. I need your help here or what have you. Guess what? What do I need? I need a new inbox, a new inbox to deal with, Not emails, but now with all the agent micro steering.

  4. 15:43

    So as somebody said to me, right, you know, the future of software is going to be all about a new inbox, a new messaging tool, and a new cursor on a blank canvas. And I think that that's sort of what we will do. And humans will need an interface to it. AI, even with increasing levels of automation. There will be productivity, there will be levels of abstraction, but I do think human agency is going to be very much part of it.