Microsoft CEO says thirty years of progress have been condensed into three

By Matthew Griffin Opinion 19th February 2025

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

When the rate of change is so fast businesses and individuals have problems getting their heads around the changes and adapting, causing a rise in anxiety and business failures.

Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, read about exponential tech and trends, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the formation of a new division called “CoreAI – Platform and Tools” at at the tech giant in response to what he sees as rapidly accelerating Artificial Intelligence (AI) development.

Building the Internet of Everything God Platform

In an internal memo to employees, Nadella explained that changes that would normally take decades are now happening in just a few years.

“Thirty years of change is being compressed into three years!” Nadella wrote.

Think, Feel, Act, Disrupt, by Innovation Keynote Matthew Griffin

The new CoreAI department will unite Microsoft’s AI efforts across the company, combining the Copilot platform, AI agents, and developer tools. Microsoft is merging several teams to achieve this goal, including its development division, AI platform group, and core teams from the CTO’s office.

CTO Innovation Series: Thierry Bedos, CTO of Hotels.com

Former Meta executive Jay Parikh will lead CoreAI after spending more than eleven years as Meta’s Vice President and Global Head of Engineering. His primary task is to create what he calls an “End-to-End AI stack” for applications driven – and even created – by AI agents, though some in the AI industry debate the role of these agents.

Nadella believes that software development is about to change fundamentally. He expects new user interfaces and AI agents to build and run applications very differently from the way we do today. These systems will adapt their capabilities based on specific roles, business processes, and industries, potentially outperforming current software in both performance and security.

Draghi demands €800 Billion a year to stem Europe's rapid decline

Microsoft will use its Azure cloud computing platform as the foundation for this AI infrastructure, which will see hundreds of billions of dollars worth of investment in the coming years, supporting tools like Azure AI Foundry, GitHub, and VS Code. AI agents will also be used to develop and maintain AI application code. CoreAI will continue to work on GitHub Copilot, using lessons learned from this AI coding tool to improve the broader AI platform.

The company calls this approach “Service as Software,” allowing software to develop custom applications or AI agents that can change SaaS applications on their own. According to Nadella, success in this new phase will depend on having better AI platforms, tools, and infrastructure.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Described by NASA as a "Walking Encyclopaedia of the Future" and one of the world’s most in demand keynote speakers Matthew Griffin, Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm, is a multi-award winning Futurist and strategic foresight expert, author, lecturer, mentor, podcast and YouTube host.

With a distinguished career running global business units at Atos, EMC, and IBM today Matthew helps leaders and titans of industry from all over the world explore the impact of the inter sections of technology, culture, and leadership, then helps them create high performance organisations that can continuously disrupt, outpace, and outthink their competition.

15 times author of the hit series the Codex of the Future series Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders across the G7, G20, and G77, and many of the world's most recognised and exceptional organisations including ABB, Accenture, ABN Amro, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Dentons, Disney, Dow, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Microsoft, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Nokia, Paramount, PepsiCo, PWC, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, Visa, WIRED, WPP and hundreds of others.

Matthew is regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, and his mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.