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An internal Microsoft memo has leaked. It was written by Julia Liuson, president of the Developer Division at Microsoft and GitHub. The memo tells managers to evaluate employees based on how much they use internal AI tools like the various Copilots: [Business Insider]
AI is now a fundamental part of how we work. Just like collaboration, data-driven thinking, and effective communication, using AI is no longer optional — it’s core to every role and every level.
Liuson told managers that AI “should be part of your holistic reflections on an individual’s performance and impact.”
Let’s be clear: this is a confession of abject failure.
Microsoft’s AI tools don’t work. Microsoft AI doesn’t make you more effective. Microsoft AI won’t do the job better.
If it did, Microsoft staff would be using it already. The competition inside Microsoft is vicious. If AI would get them ahead of the other guy, they’d use it.
We already know that when AI saves someone time at work, it’s because they can fob work off onto someone else. Total work doesn’t go down, and total productivity doesn’t go up.
But Microsoft is desperate to sell AI to anyone it can, because the CEO, Satya Nadella, has a bee in his bonnet. Nadella has decreed: everyone will use AI.
Even though it doesn’t work.
We should expect some enterprising Microsoft coder to come up with an automated AI agent system that racks up chatbot metrics for them — while they get on with their actual job.
