Satya Nadella wants Microsoft to 'copilot' India's AI journey

Satya Nadella

Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella has said his company wants to be the “copilot” for India as it starts reaping the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI). Copilot is Microsoft's AI-powered digital assistant, which is similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

“I want us to be the co-pilot for India as it really takes advantage of AI, creates its own AI products across all of these sectors, and exports them to the world,” Nadella said in an interview with CNBC-TV18's Shereen Bhan at Microsoft’s "CEO Connection" event in Mumbai on February 7.

Nadella reached Mumbai earlier in the day on a two-day visit, an annual ritual, with theme for 2024 set as AI and opportunities arising out of it. He is expected in Bengaluru on February 8.

India has a tremendous opportunity to use general-purpose technology such as AI and generative AI in a broad sectoral way in both public and private sectors and across industry, Nadella said.

Microsoft will keep investing in India on both fronts: as a source of human capital that's producing products for the world and also with the “latest and greatest” equipment helping customers such as the information technology services companies.

The Indian-origin CEO also said AI is changing economic productivity, adding he has not seen a general-purpose technology like AI that can have such a broad impact.

Among the areas witnessing massive growth are software development and frontline work in retail and healthcare, he said. AI is also being used by rural area immigrants into the urban area to access services, Nadella said.

“I was very stunned… on seeing how some of the leading model work we had done was diffusing in India, and even in something like the public sector,” Nadella told CNBC-TV18.

An advantage from this generation of AI is that it reduces the learning curve, Nadella said to query on job losses due to the technology . “So even for somebody displaced mid-career, you can pick up new skills faster, easier,” he said.

If the previous era was about “information at your fingertips”, the AI era is about  “expertise at your fingertips” in fields such as retail and healthcare.

He said wages may improve as more expert work is being done by non-experts. “They may have domain expertise but they may not have all the knowledge and so therefore, I think that they could even be better wage supported new jobs,” Nadella said.

Job displacement, however, is a given when a new technology comes in to the market, he said. “But I also am very optimistic that we even have both the policy tools and the actual tools to help us manage this transition in a net positive way for even a country like India,” Nadella said.