Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: AI can help you be more productive at work

Satya Nadella uses AI tools such as Microsoft’s Copilot to automatically prioritise his email inbox. (File photo)

Satya Nadella has said that AI can help people boost their productivity right now. In a virtual appearance at the Fast Company Innovation Festival 2024 last week, the Microsoft CEO said that it could help take on roles, even involving decision-making, across “healthcare or in finance or any other domain” in the long run.

“I don’t need to see more evidence... to know that this is working and is going to make a real difference,” CNBC Make It quoted him as saying.

Nadella, who himself uses AI tools such as Microsoft’s Copilot to automatically prioritise his email inbox, acknowledged that AI’s benefits haven’t yet outweighed its costs.

According to a Goldman Sachs report, despite all that money that has gone into developing AI tools, none can actually help most businesses earn more revenue. In it, Goldman Sachs head of global equity research Jim Covello said, "AI technology is exceptionally expensive, and to justify those costs, the technology must be able to solve complex problems, which it isn’t designed to do.”

Nadella said it would take time for the effectiveness of AI tools to reflect in profits. But he urged professionals to familiarise themselves with AI at work now to be ahead of the learning curve.

“I think this is really the time not to swim with conventional wisdom. Be playing with the technology,” he said. “In fact, be introspective as to where you are in your ability to adopt new stuff and change processes, because I think that’s going to key.”