By Sheryl Estrada
Publication Date: 2026-05-22 11:58:00
Good morning. Microsoft was once the undisputed front-runner of the generative AI boom, fueled by a $13 billion OpenAI bet. But that narrative has flipped, and so has the stock.
“Microsoft lost its way in the AI race. Can Copilot get it back on course?” is a new Fortune feature article by Jeremy Kahn. He takes readers inside CEO Satya Nadella’s January 2026 prototyping sessions with the team that built Copilot Tasks—the company’s bet on a true computer-using agent. Kahn lays out the strategic, organizational, and capex questions now confronting the board: Is Microsoft’s AI stack differentiated enough to defend margins? Can Copilot Tasks reignite per-seat economics before agentic competitors commoditize the category?
He writes: “The fact that Nadella is spending so much time with the teams building AI products, even rolling up his sleeves and building prototypes himself, says a lot about Microsoft’s current predicament. After all, this is a $3 trillion company,…
