Microsoft CEO: Microsoft will not roll out large models, but build a universal toolbox for the AI era
Microsoft CEO Nader said at the Developer Conference that the winners in the AI era are ordinary people who can use AI. Microsoft is committed to becoming a universal toolbox in the AI era, helping knowledge workers to disrupt processes and change their roles.
Core content:
1. Microsoft fully accesses MCP, releases NLWeb specification protocol, and builds a universal toolbox in the AI era
2. How AI disrupts the workflow of knowledge workers, from executors to intelligent agent managers
3. Agentic Web and M365 Copilot: Microsoft's AI toolbox strategy, integrating chat, search, intelligent agents and other functions
At this week's Microsoft Developer Conference, Microsoft announced that it would fully integrate into MCP, build an MCP registry in Windows services, and release the NLWeb specification protocol suitable for the AI-based websites.
How did Microsoft make the decision to build a toolbox instead of a large model?
In an interview, Microsoft CEO expressed his thoughts: the winner in the AI era is not the "smartest AI" but the "ordinary people who are most capable of using it." Microsoft wants to build a universal toolbox in the AI era so that every ordinary person can use the AI tools provided by Microsoft.
Process disruption and role changes for knowledge workers
In the AI era, the workflow of knowledge workers has changed significantly.
Nadel used his own work scenario as an example. He often has to meet with different clients and needs to understand the information of the corresponding clients before the meeting:
In the original process, the corresponding department of Microsoft was responsible for collecting and organizing the information, and then sending it to Nader via email or OneNote, and Nader read the report.
However, AI has changed the entire process: Nadel first thinks about the topic, then enters the prompt word, and AI can automatically aggregate web page information, email information, CRM system information, and generate reports based on multiple data sources. Nadel will in turn share the report generated by AI with the corresponding departments. People are freed from the work of collecting and organizing information and have time to think about more problems.
The workflow is different, so the role positioning will naturally change.
In the workflow with AI, the role of knowledge workers has changed from "executor of specific tasks" to "manager of agent intelligence". Knowledge workers need to spend more time thinking about what they want to do, judging whether the results produced by AI are usable, and what the subsequent improvement direction is.
Taking programmers as an example, the Copilot programming tool can complete coding and debugging by itself, and humans play a more important role in plan determination, code review and submission confirmation.
Nadel suggested that every knowledge worker should proactively use tools, restructure workflows, and retrain skills to avoid being replaced by AI agents.
Agentic Web: Microsoft wants to build a universal toolbox for the AI era
As the workflow of knowledge workers changes, the supporting software service facilities will naturally change as well. This is where Microsoft comes in.
Nadel said that Microsoft has been thinking about three meta-propositions: how we work, what our work is about, and how we go to market. Even a successful product like Windows will reach a point where there will be no more growth, so Microsoft continues to think about what services to provide to users in the AI era to gain new growth.
"You can't lose weight by watching others work out. You can only lose weight by going to the gym and working out yourself," said Nadel.
Microsoft, which has entered the AI era, has chosen to build an open, composable, and standardized AI toolbox called Agentic Web
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M365 Copilot: For ordinary users, it integrates multiple core functions such as chat, search, intelligent body, notes, etc., and is positioned as an "AI toolbox". Just like Outlook effectively integrates multiple modules such as email, address book, and calendar, Microsoft hopes that M365 Copilot can integrate multiple independent AI application tools together to provide users with one-stop service.
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Azure AI Foundry: A platform for developers to build and manage AI agents. It allows developers to call different model capabilities through the infrastructure layer provided by Microsoft to complete the development of various businesses.
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NL Web and MCP: Standard protocols that support model deployment and data circulation operations. In addition to joining the existing MCP protocol alliance, Microsoft also proposed its own NLWeb protocol, hoping to encourage more Web sites to use its own protocol, so as to better connect web data to large models.
"Diffusion" is the word that Nader repeatedly emphasized during the conversation.
Historically, Microsoft's Excel, as a data spreadsheet tool, has attracted more and more users like a snowball because of its universality and adaptability to a variety of application scenarios. It eventually spread to every user's computer and became an essential software for everyone's work and life.
Today, Nader wants to spread the Agentic Web built by Microsoft to every end user, making it an indispensable "Excel" in every ordinary person's computer in the AI era.
