By TOI Tech Desk
Publication Date: 2025-11-20 04:46:00
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella believes the company needs to completely rethink its business model for the artificial intelligence era, turning to an executive who influenced Microsoft’s cloud computing transformation 15 years ago to help navigate what he describes as a critical platform shift that could determine the tech giant’s survival.Nadella appointed Rolf Harms as an advisor on AI economics, the same executive whose 2010 white paper “Economics of the Cloud” helped force a cultural reckoning at Microsoft and paved the way for its cloud success. In an early November memo to top Microsoft executives obtained by Business Insider, Nadella wrote that the company needs to “rapidly rethink the new economics of AI across the company — just as we once did with the cloud”.
“This platform shift is all about building a new AI factory and family of Copilots and agents that drive diffusion and usage across…