technology media outlet windows latest revealed yesterday that microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar ai strategy is facing a major setback. a former senior executive who worked at microsoft for 12 years publicly pointed out that the company’s ai roadmap is repeating its strategic missteps from the internet and mobile eras—massive investments have failed to deliver commensurate market returns.
mat velloso, formerly director of windows ai innovation partners at microsoft and for four consecutive years a key technical advisor to ceo satya nadella deeply involved in top-level ai decision-making, is now a core member of meta’s superintelligence lab. he stated bluntly: despite rebranding bing as an ai gateway and pouring substantial resources into it, microsoft has yet to wrest even 0.1 percentage point of global search market share from google. more critically, even with ai features deeply integrated into the windows 11 taskbar and all office products, the proportion of paying users who actually activate and consistently use these ai services remains below 3%. this figure starkly contrasts with microsoft’s quarterly r&d and ecosystem spending of up to $37.5 billion (approximately rmb 256 billion).
over the past year, microsoft mandated that oems include npus in new laptops to support on-device ai computing, but market response has been lukewarm—users remain indifferent to the “ai pc” concept. the fundamental reason lies in the fact that windows and office still haven’t created truly compelling, irreplaceable ai-native use cases that address real pain points.
velloso believes microsoft has now entered a phase of strategic reflection: mounting costs and growing shareholder skepticism are forcing the company to shift toward listening to genuine user needs. notably, julia liuson, head of microsoft’s developer division for 23 years, recently announced her retirement. commenting on this, velloso remarked: “microsoft seems to have switched from ‘click refresh’ to ‘factory reset’ mode.”
at the beginning of 2024, velloso joined google, where the stock price has since risen cumulatively by 230%, while microsoft’s growth over the same period has been virtually zero. he admitted: “microsoft missed the internet, missed mobile, and now it’s falling behind again in the ai wave.” however, he also emphasized that microsoft will not collapse because of this—windows’ robust backward compatibility and strong enterprise‑level ecosystem stickiness make replacing legacy systems far more challenging than outsiders might imagine.
