In Episode 32 of the Growth Swarm podcast, John Siefert, Bob Evans, Tony Uphoff, and Scott Vaughan offer thoughts and context around Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s comments that artificial intelligence (AI) is the new computing platform. The hosts define not only what this statement means, but also what to remember for professional users in their personal and professional careers. Additionally, the four explore the ways in which human intelligence is being redefined in a world of increasingly pervasive artificial intelligence.
Strong points
00:11 — John introduces his co-hosts and the topic of this episode, which focuses on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s comments that AI is the next computing platform. John asks Bob, who has spent some time trying to get more context around this statement, for some details.
01:11 — When you hear the CEO of one of the world’s most influential tech companies say “AI is the next computing platform,” it raises some questions, Bob suggests. He reached out to Microsoft’s PR firm with a few questions:
- If AI is, or soon will be, this “next computing platform”, what is the current platform that Nadella thinks will be replaced or superseded?
- If AI is the “next computing platform”, how does Microsoft describe the cloud in this context? If the cloud is not today’s computing platform, how does Microsoft want people to think about what the cloud is?
- How does Microsoft see AI as “the next computing platform” and the co-existing cloud? How does Microsoft see the future interaction between AI and the cloud?
Bob explains that his goal with these questions is to help people better understand how these two incredibly powerful technologies will work together.
02:35 — What response did Bob receive from Microsoft’s PR firm? “Hi Bob. I checked with the Microsoft team and they politely declined to comment. Bob says he received a link to a publicly posted blog that shares the latest update on Azure. He was expecting to a range of responses, but didn’t expect that.
03:20 — Microsoft is a company that leads with specially crafted statements, John notes. People would be “foolish” not to think that AI will have a profound impact on absolutely everything we do. AI isn’t just the next computing platform — it’s redefining human life and intelligence, no matter what it engages with.
04:23 — Tony “couldn’t agree more” with John’s comments. Microsoft is the company that “holds on to a vision, outperforms everyone, and sticks to it longer than everyone else”. Tony says he’s not surprised that Nadella is a little more willing to become a visionary. Moreover, he suggests that we – analysts, buyers and sellers, for example – all use “the nomenclature of the past to describe something that is clearly the future”. Categorizing AI as the next computing model fails to capture the energy of the deeper nature of this transition. Tony thinks this idea will be “the biggest technological transition” of his life.
07:03 — AI is not new – the companies we interact with on a daily basis have been integrating this technology into their products for a long time. The rise of artificial intelligence, as seen in developments like ChatGPT, has been predicted for some time. John notes that this forces the world to reimagine what human intelligence means in an artificially intelligent world in order to stay relevant.
08:51 — Scott reports that he’s not surprised by Microsoft’s response to Bob, adding that Bob “answered the questions perfectly” so he could paint the picture of what these comments mean, given the complexity behind them. . AI is the tip of the spear – its applications will touch so many people across so many industries. Scott does not view AI and the cloud as mutually exclusive, but rather symbiotic, as AI will drive the use of cloud services. He finds it interesting that AI is so accessible to so many people and “more changeable than the cloud”. AI is an important step in the predictive analytics layer, and that’s just one application.
10:53 — John notes that the application of AI for predictive analytics and what it does demonstrates a real business impact. For Scott, John agrees that the cloud is the foundation on which everything is built, and AI applications are built on this platform. AI as a computing model will be built based on the cloud. All apps running on it will be infused with AI.
12:10 — What does “AI as a new computing platform” mean for businesses, especially those that have just made significant investments in cloud-based ERP platforms, assuming the cloud was the last platform computer science ?
13:35 — Bob suggests Nadella may have intended to say that AI is not the next computing platform itself, but will be the “amplifier” or create the next computing platform. If he were a customer, Bob says he’d be pretty “pissed off” and want some clarification from Microsoft — which was the nature of his questions to Microsoft’s PR firm.
15:59 — Tony explains that what the hosts are describing here is a “marketing and communication issue, not a technology issue.” He notes that two things are important in understanding the radical change in AI accessibility:
In this case, Microsoft has the ability to “step up and articulate a future like that.” He notes that Microsoft has always been “a little hesitant” to clear things up. Microsoft is missing a huge opportunity to take the “mystical technology” that is AI “out of the clouds” and demonstrate its opportunities to customers.
19:08 — “We need to be students of what the impact of artificial intelligence can be on humanity, not just our jobs, not just an investment we’ve made in technology,” suggests John. He asks Scott, Acceleration Economy’s go-to-market expert, what he thinks of Nadella’s comments as a “go-to-market faux pas.”
21:07 — If someone thinks a specific technology will future-proof their business, they’re likely off on the wrong foot “because something’s going to change,” Scott says. Microsoft’s statement is big and bold, and “unbacked”. AI development is moving away from the “customer support mindset,” as indicated by chatbots and automation, and moving towards a “customer experience” perspective, which attempts to enhance artificial intelligence.
23:12 — John suggests that Microsoft use more analogies to describe the evolution of AI and its applications to put more context around Nadella’s statement and avoid the risk of what customers will think. In general, there must be some clarification of Nadella’s statements.
25:21 — Tony insists on Scott’s point that there is “no such thing as future-proofing”, since new technology could be waiting around the corner. He feels that inadvertently Microsoft and other companies could be doing themselves and their customers a real disservice by not making things clear. He doesn’t expect companies to “have the riddle of the future”, but thinks they should be able to say “here’s how these technologies fit together, here’s the benefits, and here’s our roadmap to short term, and here’s how we’re gonna do it He figures the reason Bob hasn’t gotten his questions answered for Microsoft is because “the script for this isn’t there yet”.
27:33 — In conclusion, John notes that the important reality is that AI will affect everyone in many ways. — it is not a fad, nor a trend. In a way, AI is science fiction coming to life.
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