Hi, Trevor.
>> How are you? It's great seeing you.
Great to meet you. Likewise. Have a
seat.
Welcome to Australia. Thank you so much.
It's been fun. We've got lots to talk
about. You've made a lot of
announcements. I want to talk about AI,
where it's at. I've got some fun things
to show you, but just I want to start by
thinking about Microsoft at this
position in time. I was thinking about
it during the week. We went from command
prompt MS-DOS to to Windows 3.11. This
feels like a similar transition, you
know, from being a
a software operating system company
to being AI first. Is that a a safe
assessment? Yeah, I mean I always sort
of think about Microsoft's core identity
is a platform and a partner company,
right? I mean I look back and, you know,
um you know, the anecdote I was sharing
at the keynote even is the first time I
was in Sydney doing some demos was, you
know, you're trying to talk about Visual
Basic applications inside of Excel that
others can use to build applications,
right? I mean that is at the core. So,
even though yes, it is a shift, a
massive shift, very different, it may
feel like the internet or
um
as you said, the move from DOS to
Windows and maybe bigger even, quite
frankly, but the core threadline for me
is
how have we enabled others to build more
ambitious things than anything that we
have built, right? That I think is the
defining line of Microsoft. It was
interesting listening to your keynote
earlier today and there was people
behind me literally saying, "Oh, that's
cool." And you know, there those kind of
things under their breath.
And that's a crowd of people who work uh
in software and they're they're
developing tools. For the average person
in Australia, let alone around the
world, is AI something that they should
be worried about or concerned about?
I would say the most important thing for
us, you know, collectively, both in the
tech industry but in the broader
society, is to make sure that the
benefits of AI are really delivered to
everybody, right? Because if we don't,
uh then of course, it's not going to
have the social permission. Uh what does
that mean? It means you want to be
really a good users of water and energy
to create uh AI that then is helping
with education outcomes, health
outcomes, public sector is becoming more
efficient, uh the companies that are
using AI are becoming more productive,
they're driving economic growth that
then is making its way to people's, you
know, lives because that's the way
permission is earned, right? Because you
I I feel like at this point the
narrative around AI is, you know, such,
which I'm glad, where we're talking
about both the benefits and the
unintended consequences versus waiting.
And that debate is a good debate to have
uh versus just indexing on any one of
them, right? Because just to say AI is
all about sort of the fear of AI, that
won't help because it's inevitable that
this is a secular change. The question
is how do we drive that change such that
the benefits really are getting through
to everybody. Feels like a secular
change and also a societal change.
That's right. Which also brings up one
of the other concerns I think in
society, which is jobs. People One of
the most common questions I get when
interviewed about it is, you know, but
it's going to take jobs or cost jobs.
How do you answer that to people in in
the general public about where jobs are
going to go with AI?
>> Yeah, I mean I think the one thing is,
you know, to start with, um I think in
recognizing even right now in the state
of AI and quite frankly even for the
foreseeable future is more about what
I'll call task level automation inside
of jobs, right? You know, yesterday I
was talking to some
uh local Australian startup doing a
fantastic job of building a scribe tool
for doctors. And uh one of the things he
was describing to me was how much it's
benefiting the physi- physicians to by
reducing their paperwork burden and
helping them spend more time with
patients, right? So, that's the type of
task that they did that {quote} AI does
so that they can do the real job, which
is take care of patients. And that's
happening even in office work, uh right?
When I think about even my own job,
right? You know, was I meant to mostly
triage email or can I do
uh things where I can focus my attention
on being able to really get the deep
insights, pass better judgment on things
that I need to do so and so on. So, I
think that that's one aspect of it. But
at the same time, I'm clear-eyed that
that's why I think even the skills
announcement we had, which is about how
do we really make sure that as even new
job opportunities get created and maybe
in different forms, we have the skills
required to be able to take those jobs.
>> And you've made a big commitment here in
Australia to that skilling. That's
right. We have now, you know, committed
to, you know, training uh more than 3
million people
uh in Australia uh along with obviously
all the other investments we're making
around uh the data centers. So, big
investment in skills for Australians and
that's coming from Microsoft. Is that Is
there a reason why Australia gets that
investment? Is that a a
an endorsement of our our people or our
industry? For sure. I mean I mean
Australia is a very important market for
us. Um and whenever I think about it,
again, I go back to, you know, as a
multinational company, how are we going
to have a license to operate in
Australia? It's primarily by making sure
uh that we invest in this country, not
only our own people but also our data
centers and we're doing things like
skilling and things that we're doing in
cybersecurity with the Signals
Directorate. These are all important
investments ultimately to create local
surplus, right? When that startup, when
uh you know, Australian Post can use
this in order to be able to, you know,
have accessibility be core to them and
their co-pilot adoption or
um CBA uses it for their customer
applications or what have you. And these
are things ultimately that will drive
our business.
>> And did you get a sense You obviously
met with the Prime Minister to make some
of those announcements. Is Is the
Australian government ready for AI? Uh
are you helping them along the way or
are they coming to you for help?
>> Well, first of all, I think in
Australia, I would say the government is
taken uh really a a progressive
uh you know, approach to sort of making
sure that they're thinking about what is
the the positives of AI, what are some
of the things that they need to get
ahead in terms of whether it's safety or
whether it's around skills
um and what have you. And it's fantastic
to see their adoption and thoughtfulness
uh when it comes to AI. Uh and also the
human capital in Australia, right? Which
is, as I said, is whether it's in these
large-scale multinational companies that
are operating or the startups that are
getting born here and not only building
for Australia but for the world, uh the
high ambition here. This is the first
time I'd say in the world uh and you see
it in Australia that the rate of
diffusion is such that there's no sort
of I would say time lag between what may
be happening on the West Coast of the
United States or the East Coast of China
and what's happening in Australia. Now,
I want to take a minute. You spent some
time yesterday with a lot of Aussie
businesses looking at how they're using
AI. And I think the average Aussie, let
alone average person in the world,
thinks of AI as ask a question, get a
more thoughtful answer. It's very basic
from a couple of years ago. But there's
a thing called agents. You you know all
this, but and you had the Commonwealth
Bank talking about how they're using an
agent in in a live chat. So, what I did,
I took Copilot Studio and I tried to
create an agent for my family. So, three
kids, my wife and I, and I thought about
my busy life, my busy diary, and we have
a shared family calendar. So, I wanted
to demonstrate it to you if I could.
>> Cool. Um it's called
>> you build it? Well, I used Copilot
Studio and I integrated uh the the
Outlook um calendars. And so, we've
called it Charles, our family butler.
So, I'll give you a quick example.
What's my schedule look like on Monday?
And so, basically, it's now going to go
and check my personal schedule and see
how busy my day is, but it's also, cuz
I've engaged it to always check the
family calendar because I want to know
what I'm going to be able to do and how
I'm going to help the family. So, it's
looking at my calendar. I think people
need to understand that it's not just
reading a calendar, it's trying to
understand the schematics of the day.
And so, now it's giving me a whole
output of my day telling me what I've
got on, but by default, it's telling me
about the clashes and and problems that
I might have. So, considerations and
even making suggestions, "Would you like
me to send Amanda, my wife, a quick note
about the netball pickup clash?" But
here, it gets even better. So, what I
can also do is say,
"Move my planning meeting to earlier in
the afternoon and let my wife know that
I can pick Victoria up for netball."
So, basically now, it's going to change
my calendar and it's going to send my
wife an email letting her know that I've
now changed my calendar and I can kick
pick up Victoria from netball. So, I
know it's a really simple example.
>> a fantastic demo demo. I wish you had
gotten you into my keynote and demo
that. Because I think what you just
showed is like the pri- First of all,
the pride you have, the sense of
empowerment you have that you built this
application just like in the past you
may have built an Excel spreadsheet or a
Word document. You just literally
created a piece of software. And there's
an agent. There's an email to my wife,
which to be honest, probably not
appropriate. I would normally send a
text, maybe, but just letting you know
that I've adjusted my meeting so I can
pick Victoria up from school on Monday
and take her to netball. So, it's it's a
great I feel like is that the next phase
for AI? So, people to see it in real
world usage of it?
>> you captured it well, which is what is
the output that you care about. In this
case, you you didn't sort of say, "Oh,
well, you know, my this coordination
task I have around my family, I want to
basically build an agent agentic system
that just does that so that I am not
sending mails or text messages or
keeping track mentally." And then the
agent offloads all of that, right? That
ability. And that's what CBA is doing,
right? For example, is one the cus- the
customer directly is interacting with
the bot they built, uh but then more
interestingly, their own agents are
using agents in order to be able to do
the escalation cases with higher
quality,
>> Yeah. with less drudgery. And that type
of improvement is what's fantastic.
>> Commonwealth also talked about how it
then enabled the human staff to have
more, I guess, insightful information by
the time they got to the staff for for
support.
>> Exactly. Exactly. And I think that the
you know, the the complexity of some of
our products and others inside of an
organization are such that sometimes
when even you're on the front lines in
customer service or as a banker even,
you want to be able to have this agentic
sort of support
that's right at your fingertips, right?
In fact, that is the way you know, you
know, we used to have this thing called
information at your fingertips and now
going forward it's about agents at your
fingertips that are really helping you
be more productive. You also met some
people from Cricket Australia who are
using Microsoft Copilot to analyze stats
in real time during cricket matches.
You're a massive cricket fan. That must
have been impressive. You've got a
cricket pitch at Microsoft head
[laughter] office in Seattle. We do. We
do and it's well used. In fact, I get to
overlook it. Uh but yeah, I mean what
Cricket Australia has done is I mean
first of all, you know, cricket is a
very sort of stats rich uh sport and
they were able to take what's been a
treasure trove of data that they have
had since 1897 or something like that
and parlay that into now this Cricket
Australia app and they have the stats
guru functionality and to be able to
follow along ball by ball where the
stats it it's just think about it,
right? You know, it's not you know, that
ability to generate the most interesting
stat relevant to a context of one, you
know, ball. That's just extraordinary.
If we rewind 5 years, I don't think
anyone in the general public saw AI
coming. You maybe did um and other other
people in business, but I don't I don't
[clears throat] know what the next 3 to
4 years looks looks like. Do you have a
crystal ball of how much more is going
to change for average Australians around
the use of AI or what's next?
>> Yeah, I think the the speed with which
some of these new capability jumps are
happening are pretty stunning and that
to your point was what you know, when I
first read even the scaling laws paper,
I felt like wow, this if this happens,
this would be really interesting and
it's turned out that it's held that
line. Uh but the more
important aspect I think we're reaching
now is the models and in fact, people
describe this as the model overhang,
right? I think the capabilities are
there. The question now is to be able to
harness them. Like that's why I'm more
impressed with your demo than any model
capability, right? Because at the end of
the day, did we all use it do things
that are useful for the outcomes we care
about individually and as organizations
throughout society. And that I think is
more going to be the defining thing
about what's the real frontier of this
technology. How quickly finally, how
will people know what's real and what's
not in the future? I feel like that's a
real concern for people especially with
what's happening on the internet. 100%.
I mean, I think the the digital, you
know, the provenance and trust are going
to be the most important aspects, right?
It's not just about deep fakes, but
everything, right? For example, when you
have lots and lots of agents,
uh that's why I think even what we are
doing with agent 365 as a way to give
organizations that core control plane to
you know, have the observability.
And this is the issue with any new
technology, right? As the the rapid
adoption comes on the unintended
consequences and this time around, we
have to really get ahead, right? Whether
it is about identity,
provenance, security and governance
policies and so that way that we can be
secure about it. Can Australia be an AI
powerhouse? I mean, I think that we
think about AI is more than an
accelerant
to the comparative advantage of
countries and companies that already
have that going, right? So in some
sense, AI is not some abstract new thing
that sits outside of what is the rest of
the economy, right? Australia today is a
powerhouse on many fronts and that those
fronts will get more amplified because
of their use of AI and of course, you
know, when it comes to even just
generating the startups that, you know,
go on to capture large swaths of market
share in different categories can come
out of Australia as much as any other
place. I've watched you bounce from
place to place over the last 2 days.
You've you're a very busy man. You're
you're the you're the boss of one of the
biggest companies in the world. Do you
get a chance to just look around Sydney
at any point while you're here?
>> I
that is one of my dreams is to just come
here when I'm looking around. But look,
it's it's always a pleasure to be able
to come and visit and quite frankly,
meet with people. It's energizing to me
to be able to see the demo that you did
or the demos from the Commonwealth Bank
or the Cricket Australia and it's always
fun. Thanks, Satya. Thanks so much,
Trevor. Thank you.
>> Cheers.