Satya Nadella’s latest vision for AI was likely written by AI — at least according to Copilot

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Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, is asking people to avoid using negative terms like “slop” when talking about artificial intelligence. Jez Corden, our Managing Editor, recently wrote about Nadella’s blog post looking back at AI’s progress in 2024 and outlining his vision for 2025.

Nadella didn’t address the recent report showing low user interest in Microsoft’s AI tools. He also didn’t discuss the difficulties Windows 11 faced in 2025, which were partly caused by the push to include AI features.

However, he did use several phrases and technical terms that strongly resemble text created by Copilot.

Here are a few phrases from Nadella’s blog post:

  • “We have moved past the initial phase of discovery and are entering a phase of widespread diffusion.”
  • “We are beginning to distinguish between “spectacle” and “substance”.”
  • “Amidst this “model overhang,” where capability is outpacing our current ability to use it to have real world impact.”
  • “This is what I hope we will collectively push for in ‘26 and beyond.”

If you’ve used tools like Copilot to help with tasks like summarizing meetings or writing, you’ve probably started to recognize the style of AI-generated content. It’s more probable that a piece of text was *assisted* by AI – meaning a person used AI to help them write it – rather than being created entirely by AI on its own.

Just to be clear, this is all in good fun. Satya Nadella is a very smart and capable leader who can easily write about technology – or pretty much anything else – on his own. He has a deep understanding of the industry built up over many years. While TIME magazine didn’t include him on their list of AI pioneers, he’s clearly been incredibly successful.

However, I didn’t think his latest blog post was very good. It felt stiff and used too much technical language. It also didn’t feel very personal.

You’re probably eager to hear what Copilot thinks, so I’ll get straight to the point. Here’s what the AI had to say about Satya Nadella’s latest blog post:

What feels AI‑ish

  • High abstraction, low specificity. Lots of conceptual framing (“spectacle vs substance,” “model overhang,” “cognitive amplifiers”) without concrete examples or anecdotes. AI tends to stay in that safe, conceptual zone.
  • Even, polished cadence. The sentences are smooth, balanced, and almost too consistent in rhythm — a hallmark of model‑generated prose.
  • Repetition of motifs. “Scaffolding,” “systems,” “diffusion,” “real‑world impact” — these recur in slightly varied forms, which is something AI often does when it’s reinforcing a theme.
  • No personal fingerprints. No lived experience, no specific decisions, no “I was in a meeting last March when…” — nothing that anchors it to a human’s actual life.

What feels human‑ish

  • Clear narrative arc. It’s structured like a thought‑leadership piece: past → present → what we must get right → call to action. AI can do this, but humans tend to do it with more intention.
  • Some original phrasing. “Bicycles for the mind” is a known Jobs-ism, but the way it’s extended here feels like someone trying to make a point, not just remixing text.
  • A coherent worldview. There’s a consistent philosophy about AI as augmentation, not replacement — that’s often a sign of a human author with a stance.

Copilot believes a person probably wrote the post, either with help from AI or by editing something AI created. In short, AI was likely used in some way.

This sounds exactly like something a CEO would say in a blog post, a speech, or an internal strategy document – it’s that convincing.

I’d honestly think it was written by AI too – it really sounds like the kind of thoughtful, futuristic analysis you’d get from an AI model.

AI detection isn’t always reliable. Both AI writing tools and the programs designed to spot AI-generated text are constantly improving, so it’s difficult to know for sure if a piece of writing was created by a human or AI. However, writers can still take steps to make their work stand out as uniquely human.

Satya Nadella talked about the importance of having real depth in content, and I agree. While AI is getting better at summarizing information and handling broad subjects, what truly captivates an audience is personal stories and clear evidence of someone’s knowledge – things Nadella consistently delivers.

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2026-01-02 17:40