Microsoft and Spanish Steps AI Strategy
June 9, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Microsoft announced more than a half dozen AI models. “At Build 2026, Microsoft Doubles Down on Proprietary AI Models to Win Every Layer of the AI Stack” reports:
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella kicked off the annual Build 2026 keynote in San Francisco, doubling down on AI agents and proprietary models as the company seeks to compete more directly with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic…. The company took its first major step toward reducing its dependence on OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, in which it has invested in billions.
I think this is the Spanish steps approach to AI. In Rome, there is an impressive staircase. In the 18th century a connection between the Piazza di Spagna at the foot of the hill and a church on top of the hill was needed. Hence, steps were constructed. Now the steps metaphorically connect many things; for example, tourists to the upscale shops and true believers with the divine technology known as artificial intelligence.
A visionary worker knows that building the Spanish Steps using stone, dirt, and hand tools was stupid. This wizard sees the future and intuitively knows that advanced technology is within reach given enough time and money. The visionary is now selling trinkets from the Via dei Condotti sidewalk Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
Microsoft has the commercial and US government markets in its grip. The people who want access to the tools on top the hill, not just the handbags and trinkets down below need digital Spanish Steps. That’s what Microsoft’s AI announcements are supposed to deliver.
If you want to code something, Microsoft offers MAI-Code-1-Flash.
Do you want an Android-based operating system, Project Soltera has you covered.
Do you need a 24×7 smart assistant. Microsoft offers Scout.
Need a quantum chip to power your next smartphone? Microsoft has Majorana 2.
Need a text centric LLM? Microsoft has MAI-Thinking-1.
Need voice to text? You will have the to-be MAI-Transcribe-1.5.
Image hunger? Use MAI-Image-2.5.
Want to convert that smart software enabled Word document to a podcast? Hit up MAI-Voice-2.
I am not sure I have identified the AI blocks that comprise this Spanish Step construction. I do know there are quite a few blocks to help a customer get from the basic software to the top of the hill. Microsoft believes that its faithful and some converts will want to ascend to the AI faithful’s meeting point.
The only problem is that Microsoft’s marketing is more effective than its ability to capture the attention of those who want AI systems. I don’t think the current approach to AI is the “top of the hill.” I think Microsoft and the other big US players are building steps. From my point of view, the blocks are cut from the same conceptual cloth. The production of the blocks is expensive and requires continual investment to keep them stable.
Some people who have climbed up the hill are reporting that the journey was difficult and expensive. More information pops up in my newsfeed that the reward for reaching the AI hilltop is not worth the effort. Medical uses of AI gives some pause. Autonomous weapons relying on AI are definitely exciting. Answering basic questions with incorrect information remains a persistent problem. (Just ask an attorney who trusted AI and learned that a court was not impressed with fake information.) For a real thrill, explain how a self driving car ends up blocking residents in Cow Hollow in San Francisco.
Several observations:
- AI is perceived by the true believers as “the next big thing.”
- The proof of the value of AI is that “if we build it, they will come.” That’s been partially correct, but now those who came are finding the game unsatisfying and those in the stands stand a chance of getting beaned with a foul ball.
- The productivity payoffs are difficult to quantify. Marketing is not the type of evidence that makes me comfortable relying on AI for much of anything
- Benefits from specific use of AI systems — maybe even those developed by Microsoft — will perform well in certain use cases. But the connector from regular users to the glorious meeting place at the top of the hill is simply not complete.
Net net: Microsoft wants to “own the AI stack” as someone said. That’s a good idea for a large company. However, I am not convinced that Microsoft can do AI that is more effective than what Chinese professionals, the Google, the entertaining genius Elon Musk, the quirky yet delightful Mark Zuckerberg, the fluid thinker at Anthropic, or any of the other AI construction firms can create. I harbor a belief that an alternative approach or different innovations will deliver a more useful AI stack. That means that the Spanish Steps will be replaced with an escalator or, if some Stanford or MIT wizards are involved, a teleportation device. Can one define “teleportation”? Can one define “artificial intelligence”?
Stephen E Arnold, June 9, 2026
Microsoft May View AI As a Super App
June 4, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
One of the simplest tricks in debate has a bunch of names. Game players like to say “pop up a level” or just “level up, dude.” Those with exposure to the rigors of traditional indexing say, “Just put it in a different cluster.” Silicon Valley types infused with the zeitgeist of incomprehensibility offer, “Do the meta play.” A rose by any other name still smells like an old age home on Sunday morning.
A great thinker wonders if a rose is actually a cat. Perhaps he can sell this concept and make lots of money? Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
The concept is that one has a thing and one wants to make that thing appear more profound, new, zippier, or imbued with qualities a person unfamiliar with “level upping” does not understand, see, or comprehend.
I want to point to an example described in “Exclusive: Microsoft Is Building a Super App That Combines Coding, Chat, and Other Copilot AI Tools.” (I like the exclusive part because by my count there are about a dozen outfits building super apps; however, as a dinobaby, I am generous. I think the “exclusive” is that no other big time real business news outfit has ever reported on Microsoft doing the clustering play or the “pop up a level, dude” tactic.)
Be that as it may, the “exclusive” write up reports:
The software giant is working on a one-stop shop that would connect its GitHub Copilot coding assistant, Copilot chat function, Copilot Cowork tool, and a new agentic workflow capability internally named Autopilot into a single app, according to two sources familiar with the project, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a platform that hasn’t yet been released.
Yep, a meta-app that will deliver a “cohesive product.” Isn’t this an admission that after three years of AI innovation, users of Microsoft software, hardware, and services are generally confused about what Copilot does what and how. The effort to data has caused a number of Microsoft users to want a way to turn off AI everything in Microsoft “experiences.” Some third parties have been paid big bucks to make the Copilot thing more obedient. But for most users, AI has begun to morph from “gee, this is cool” to “gee, this is a bit of a problem.”
The write up continues:
There may also be a toggle function for a user to go back and forth between their personal and enterprise 365 Copilots. A user will still be able to access their Copilots outside of the super app.
If this statement is indeed true, doesn’t this suggest that Microsoft is just foolin’? There will be many Copilots, not a single super app like the ones available from a Chinese outfit or from the alleged criminal Pavel Durov of Telegram and VKontakte fame. I won’t mention the others because then I will be revealing some of my upcoming lecture for the cyber fraud folks in Virginia in a few weeks. Some of my information, in my dinobabyish opinion, is indeed “exclusive.”
How lost in AI weirdness is Microsoft? May I suggest that this statement from the Fortune article helps answer the question? Here you go:
Microsoft in the past year has undergone one of the largest corporate reshuffles in its history that has included a string of high-profile departures and reorgs throughout its businesses. In April, it announced its first-ever employee buyout offer, aimed at its most long-tenured employees. At next week’s Build conference, Microsoft AI Chief Executive Mustafa Suleyman is expected to unveil new proprietary AI models. Suleyman, who once led consumer Copilot, has focused on models since the restructuring in March.
This is not recalibration in my view. This is scrambling and then trying to figure out how to put the eggs back in their shells.
Can Microsoft level up? Will the company survive the other super app developers? Will there be a reframing of the Microsoft AI strategy that includes security, defense against open source options, and the predatory instincts of Googzilla-type organizations in the US and from — yes, it is really true — other countries?
Confident in your answer? Hit those prediction markets.
Stephen E Arnold, June 4, 2026
Google Showers Cash on Consultants: The “Useless” Professionals Are Important Now
June 2, 2026
While Google is cutting costs by firing employees, it is also spending $750 million to fund a Cloud Next 2026 endeavor. This is meant to advance its partners’ development of agentic AI applications, making this the largest single partner investment in history. According to The Next Web’s story: “Google Puts $750 Million Behind The Consultants It Needs To Close The Cloud Gap.” the firing of the money canon signals the start of another AI race.
The AI death match will shift from selling cloud infrastructure to financing systems integrators and consultancies that deploy Google AI. Agentic AI will create a $1 trillion global market and Google wants to own a large portion of it by making its partners the main delivery channels.
Here are more details about the fund:
“The fund is not a venture capital vehicle. It is a mix of credits, co-investment capital, training subsidies, and go-to-market funding designed to get the world’s largest consulting firms building agents on Google’s platform rather than on Microsoft Azure or AWS. The economics explain the urgency: for every dollar a customer spends on Google Cloud, partners capture up to $7.05 in services revenue, meaning the consultancies are not just a distribution channel but a multiplier of Google’s own cloud consumption. Google now counts more than 2,900 services partners, with a 400% increase in new partner entries over the past year and a 250% increase in partner-influenced revenue. The fund is a bet that accelerating the partner ecosystem is the fastest route to closing the market share gap with AWS and Azure.”
Google’s individual partners have added their own money to the fund. Accenture is expanding its Gemini practice and has already built more than 450 agents on Google Cloud. Deloitte has more than one hundred agents on and said the company made the largest investment in Google. KPMG said they’ll allot $100 million to the project, while PwC has $400 earmarked for Google Cloud. NTT Data and Cognizant have 5000 engineers working on agents specifically for healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing.
Google is investing this money with their partners in order to beat Microsoft in the enterprise. Microsoft has a structural advantage with Office 365 and it also happens to be distributed to Fortune 500 companies that Google wants to make their own. Sure, AWS is also a rival to Google, but Microsoft is the outfit the Googlers want to supplant.
Google knows it can run the world. Will the world go along with this McKinsey-inspired big idea? Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, tried to talk about AI in a recent graduation address. He probably said Googley things amidst the boos. Is that a harbinger of Google’s AI vision?
Whitney Grace, June 2, 2026
Is LinkedIn Terminating Humanoids AND Pretending to Kill AI Slop?
May 26, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I have a team member who has figured out how to send a notice to Microsoft LinkedIn that one of my team or I has created a short item for my blog Beyond Search. Since 2008, I have been using the blog to capture my ideas. Once in a while, I query my content and sometimes find a gem to include in one of my books. A good example was the September 2025 publication “The Telegram Labyrinth.” The book — despite one of my team member’s protestations — it is not available to anyone. The book is free to those in my law enforcement, cyber fraud, and intel lectures. Those lucky souls at my upcoming series of Ciifer talks will get my last three books for suffering through my non-AI assisted comments about the future of online crime. (Here’s lookin’ at you, OpenAI.)
Not long ago, I read that Microsoft LinkedIn was allowing some employees to find their future elsewhere. With vanlife vlogs dead, I hope these capable professionals can explore other opportunities to generate substantive revenue. Maybe thrifting, car detailing, and dog walking? Here’s the statement:
New CEO Daniel Shapero, appointed last month, is overseeing a 5% workforce reduction targeting around 875 roles in engineering, product, marketing, and sales operations. Internal communications describe the move as simplifying operations and reallocating staff toward faster-growing business segments. This marks Shapero’s first major strategic action since succeeding Ryan Roslansky, signaling a focus on long-term positioning rather than short-term cost cutting.
Thanks, Venice. Good enough.
Okay, but what’s the second strategic shift? I have an answer because my newsfeed delivered to me “LinkedIn Doesn’t Want Your AI Slop Anymore.” I try not to produce AI slop. I am just myself generating dinobaby blog posts. I do want to point out that BearBlog, a somewhat interesting cycling obsessed outfit in Cape Town, South Africa, labeled my own dinobaby output as AI slop. There’s nothing like censorship and AI to catch my attention. If you want censorship, give that operation a whirl.
“LinkedIn Doesn’t Want Your AI Slop Anymore” reports:
In a blog post, the company’s VP of Product Laura Lorenzetti says the changes will target everything from outright engagement bait, to recycled “thought leadership” and other “generic” content that “lacks the authenticity and originality.” The company is also taking aim at posts and comments that have obvious signs of AI construction like “it’s not X, it’s Y,” phrasing. LinkedIn isn’t sharing a lot of detail about how it’s defining or detecting AI slop, but says that its engineers collaborated with its in-house editorial team to identify “patterns in how members engage, recognizing what adds perspective, context, or expertise versus what simply repeats existing ideas without contributing anything new.”
You ask, “What’s the strategic part for CEO Daniel Shapero?” My view is that Microsoft is the outfit that kicked off the generative AI craze for anyone using Word, Excel, et al. Now the Mother Goose of AI Craziness is trying to figure out exactly how it landed into the pickle of putting its smart software in Notepad, an ASCII text editor. Banning AI in a Microsoft product may create a situation causing Mr. Shapero to consider selling items on eBay or organizing walking tours of his city as a possible alternative work challenge. Why? LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. Microsoft is now a BAIT, a big AI tech outfit mired in the swamp of issues associated with Microsoft’s leadership of it own artificial intelligence HMS Titanic clone.
LinkedIn has filtered some of my Telegram-related content. Now Microsoft will filter AI generated content, not just information about a major online platform whose founder awaits trial in France on about a dozen serious online crime charges. What about those LinkedIn luminaries who have built a brand to attract consulting business with tens of thousands of followers? What about people who use LinkedIn to create synthetic personas, populating their backgrounds with what sure looks to me like AI generated craziness? What about the companies whose advertisements seem to have the scent of a LLM output?
LinkedIn is now on a voyage to long term positioning. I hope the route does not retrace the journey of that Titanic vehicle.
Stephen E Arnold, May 26, 2026
Microsoft and Techno Military Friction
May 14, 2026
![green-dino_thumb_thumb3_thumb_thumb_[2]_thumb_thumb](https://www.arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/green-dino_thumb_thumb3_thumb_thumb_2_thumb_thumb-1.gif "green-dino_thumb_thumb3_thumb_thumb_[2]_thumb_thumb")
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
When I took my first “real” job (office, 8 to 5 hours, dress code, and actual information secrecy policies), I learned from my boss (a senior vice president) two things: [a] Halliburton was a big, important, well connected company and it was “right” when it made business decisions and [b] clients in the nuclear industry operate on the principle “we pay you obey.” I learned quickly and really enjoyed my years at a company that would contribute a leader like Richard Cheney as a case study for would-be MBAs.
The MBAs from France explain the facts of life to their customers in a war zone. Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
I am not sure that the learnings I obtained made it to the really big company named Microsoft. I am not sure if the technical outfits today are into “learnings” that minimize military friction with a vendor, supplier, or consultant. That’s too bad. Misunderstandings can have unanticipated knock on effects. Let’s look at an allegedly “real” and accurate example. Globes (an online publication) made available this story on May 11, 2026: “Microsoft Israel Chief Leaves Amid Ethical Controversy.” (Heads up. You may encounter a paywall when you try to read the complete story which I urge you to do.)
The story reports:
Haimovich left his position after an investigation by Microsoft’s global management into Microsoft Israel’s work with the Ministry of Defense, amid concern that the company’s code of ethics had been violated. Several managers in Microsoft Israel’s governance department have also left their positions.
Keep in mind there are some kinetics going on involving Israel. When missiles can kill without much warning, military professionals have a tendency to become quite forceful. Plus, military professionals give orders. Even though I am not a military veteran, I figured out the “learnings” when I joined the nuclear outfit in my first job. There are rules, usually crystal clear rules.
The article states:
Israel’s management did not conduct itself with full transparency regarding the manner in which the Ministry of Defense uses Microsoft’s systems. It is believed that Microsoft was concerned that under the contract with the Ministry of Defense there were units that were operating in a non-transparent way that violated its terms of use, and which exposed it to legal and regulatory risks in Europe.
In my opinion, this means that Microsoft’s military client in Israel was using Microsoft technology and infrastructure in ways that would land Microsoft in hot water in the European Union.
Unlike some vendors of what I call “intelware,” the article points out:
Microsoft has not agreed to extensive use of its technology by the security forces in Israel or other countries – such as for gathering data about users and using this information to harm those involved in terrorism.
For me, this was a situation that would create a “we pay you obey” situation. The people who have now departed Microsoft to find their future elsewhere probably applied the “we pay you obey” rule. Microsoft in far off carpetland on the left coast of the United States figured out after a number of years how the firm’s estimable technology was applied by different entities in Israel.
Please, read the original article to get the details of Microsoft contracts, its principles for the use of its software, and the bureaucratic processes that make clear “management” is not exactly as good as the 32 bit code running in the guts of Windows 11. And I know that is difficult to believe.
I wish to present several observations:
- When one sells to military, law enforcement, intelligence entities, keep the “we pay you obey” concept in mind.
- Microsoft’s alleged staff adjustments created news, further demonstrating a certain “look at what we just did” message about the company and its policies.
- The shifting of management oversight from an in-country job to one that can be handled from more than 2,000 miles away sends additional signals about how Microsoft runs its azure-toned railroad.
American high technology companies have a knack for creating news. Furthermore, US big AI tech outfits seem to struggle with the concepts I identified earlier in this short blog post; namely, an office, 8 to 5 hours, dress code, and actual information secrecy policies.
Imagine how the interactions for the Microsoft France office and their clients in Israel will unfold. I hope those Softies took some training in meeting management.
Stephen E Arnold, May 14, 2026
Bedrock: Hackers Know the Bugs Will Not Be Fixed
May 11, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Okay, we have Mythos. We have other LLMs that can find bugs. We have students in Estonia learning cyber security by banging away at Windows Azure, Windows 11, and Windows Teams. What do we learn from Tom’s Hardware? Answer: “We still have Windows 11 using ’90s code.”
What’s that suggest to you? I will share what my thoughts are once I take a look at a couple of passages from Tom’s “Microsoft CTO Confesses That 30-Year-Old Code from the Mid-90s Still Forms the Bedrock of Windows 11 — Ancient Win32 API Still the Backbone, But CTO Says It’s More Relevant Than Ever in 2026.”
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
The write up reports:
… the firm is currently in the midst of a major transformation, targeting enthusiast hot button areas like Windows performance, overhead, and reliability. This drastic pivot was cautiously welcomed in contrast to Microsoft being widely slammed for boasting about Windows “evolving into an agentic OS” last November. Currently, Microsoft seems to be flailing around, trying to stop folks straying to pastures greener like Mac and Linux.
I thought Microsoft made security job number one after SolarWinds. Now we have a “transformation.” But the company is transforming from what to what. Is it transforming to a security first outfit to an AI system? Is it transforming from desktop software to a cloudy solution? Is it transitioning from a baloney output machine to a horse feathers output system?
The write up states:
The CTO explains that Win32 has persisted even when facing targeted existential threats from within Microsoft, particularly in the Windows 8 era. “There’s been various times in Microsoft’s history where we thought we’d reboot the Windows API surface, like WinRT, that actually didn’t play out the way a lot of people expected it to.”
Explains? I think this means that Microsoft engineers cannot fix up, remediate, or reliably enhance Windows because of its bedrock. Yeah, that is helpful.
Okay, what’s my reaction?
- Windows is old code swathed in wrappers. Unlike “baby diapers” these wrappers cannot be cleaned. More digital diapers are added, thus increasing the attack surface for “germs” like the computer science students honing their cyber skills by hacking at Microsoft software.
- There is no fix. How do I know this? The WinRT statement means to me, “Yeah, we tried and failed.” The implication is that one pays for follies like the AI craziness in Notepad and the core issues from the 1990s are still there like defective protein strings that will one day go wacky so a system, like some people, fall over dead. Nifty.
- The trotting out of a tools person who was hired by Microsoft and then having him explain the value of bedrock and the persistence of old problems does zero for my confidence in the Microsoft outfit. Sure, it makes money, but it creates massive problems for its users, customers, and partners. Guess what? Too bad.
Net net: I have a number of Mac computers. Exactly zero of them present weird software failures like a failure to print, messages that a NAS cannot be found, or mice that don’t mouse. This article is a good promotion for a shift to greener pastures. Typical Microsoft. Hands waving and a shoulder shrug. Yeah, WinRT.
Stephen E Arnold, May 11, 2026
Microsoft Management: Big Bet, Big Money, and Big Problem
May 6, 2026
Every Microsoft user knows it. Even Microsoft knows it. Finally Microsoft admits that Copilot stinks worse than Windows Vista and ME says How To Geek in “The Uncomfortable Truth About Copilot: Microsoft Knows It’s Useless”. It’s hard enough getting work done in today’s work environment with all the constant dings, alerts, and honks. What makes it harder is an AI assistant waving at you from the corner of your screen. It’s a distraction. You don’t need it. Now Microsoft knows you don’t need it and promises, “Gee, we will do better.”
Sure, Copilot is the spawn of Bob and Clippy.
Who wants smart software in an ASCII editor, a basic photo editor, or a utility to capture a screenshot. Folks, this was a Microsoft management failure. A big bet and the insertion of AI incentives into the minds of people just as baffled about smart software as you and I are.
I don’t think that Microsoft’s admission of its colossal misstep will change people’s thinking about the company or its astute management team overnight. In 2022, Microsoft pulled a marketing fast one on the Google. The Google fumbled into Code Red or something. The race to Silicon Valley excess (not success) was on.
In 2026, Microsoft’s management wizards have figured out that its own actions are causing computer users to embrace Linux and the Apple line up of incredibly similar range of computers.
Microsoft even warns users, despite all the marketing that AI was the future, that Copilot will make mistakes:
There’s a massive chasm between how Microsoft markets Copilot and how its lawyers describe the service in the dark corners of the legal text. The Microsoft Terms of Use (updated in October 2024) legally defines Copilot as being “for entertainment purposes only.” The terms explicitly state that the AI “can make mistakes” and warn: “Don’t rely on Copilot for important advice.” When called out on this, a Microsoft spokesperson told PCMag that the “entertainment” phrasing was just “legacy language” from the Bing Chat days. While the company promises to update the text, the contradiction is hard to ignore.”
I am not sure stating this well-known fact will have much impact. I quite like my Macbooks. I have a friend who is definitely into Linux on a four year old computer. “It’s fast,” he told me.
Adobe is now learning that subscription revenue created an opportunity for its competitors to attack. Microsoft wants subscription and loyalty (plus a credit card) to enjoy the benefits of Bob and Clippy’s shotgun marriage. The cited article says:
“It’s a bold move to hike the price for a feature while simultaneously scrubbing its most forced integrations and warning users that it shouldn’t be used for important work. You’re paying more for a service that Microsoft is removing from its own apps because it was deemed “unnecessary.” This cycle of forced adoption followed by a quiet retreat leaves the user holding the bill for a product that doesn’t really have a clear purpose.”
I wonder if the use of the word “bold” was a mental lapse. I was thinking that either “dumb” or “stupid” would work in the sentence. Didn’t Microsoft post a notice that one should not use Bob and Clippy’s juvenile delinquent for serious work? Yeah. Microsoft did to that. Maybe “inept” would be a possibility instead of bold.
My colleagues and I have picked up the acronym from our fearless leader. Mr. Arnold calls these AI outfits BAIT firms. That means big AI tech companies are trying to capture fish who think that fluff is real tune. Believe me. AI output is recycled Bob and Clippy stuff.
Whitney Grace, May 6, 2026
Microsoft Does the AI Cha-Cha
April 30, 2026
Have you seen the charts and lists of Microsoft Copilot instances? The numbers don’t match. I am not sure anyone has an accurate tally because now Microsoft is removing Copilot features. Which is it? Adding new must-have smart software to Microsoft services or removing Copilot because users are not too keen on the “take your medicine, Sally” approach.
It is Microslop, not Micromom.
My guess is that Bill Gates likes Copilot less than the publicity one of his friendships has generated. Tom’s Guide reports why Amanda Caswell, “I Ditched Copilot For Claude In Microsoft Word-And I’m Never Going Back.” Caswell explains how her writing process was Copilot. She’d start, be interrupted by tedious copy and paste and shifting tabs and be constantly annoyed with the productivity killing actions. When Anthropic released a Claude add-on for Word, Caswell decided to do a case study about which was better. Here’s what she found:
“Before this, ChatGPT was a destination where I had to go when I had a question such as “what’s another word for X” or “What word would help punch up this headline?” Now, the AI lives inside my document. Similar to Gemini inside a Google Doc, Claude now works in Microsoft Word — the platform I prefer over Google Docs for reasons worthy of another article. Instead of treating the AI as a separate entity, it feels like a native feature of Word. The biggest shift was psychological: when the tool is right there in the sidebar (or even responding to my Word Comments), I stop overthinking the "interaction" with the AI and just focus on the writing.”
Caswell discovered that Claude is an encouraging, useful editor that not only stimulates the creative process but also improves work via constructive criticism and helpfulness. I wonder if this is how AI should be used: As a tool and not a replacement for actual humans.
What has Microsoft done with its plethora of AI tools, systems, and technologies? Microslop. Microsoft wanted the word to be filtered from online discourse. Not even Copilot could pull that off. It was busy making Notepad much more useful. Time for a senior management leadership cha-cha-cha.
Whitney Grace, April 30, 2026
The Monetization Valhalla: Agents Have to Buy Licenses to Use Microsoft Software
April 20, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Google thinks in terms of online advertising. Microsoft thinks in terms of selling licenses, seats, bundles, and any other grouping a company or a Certified Microsoft partner can cook up. The online publication Business Insider published “Microsoft Exec Suggests AI Agents Will Need to Buy Software Licenses, Just Like Employees” and let the cat out of the bag. (This is a paywalled story, folks.)
Microsoft may have found the secret to ever-increasing license revenue. The sales professional in the illustration is one happy Softie. Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
The write up says:
At a recent conference, Microsoft executive Rajesh Jha floated a provocative idea. In a future where companies deploy fleets of AI agents, those agents may need their own identities — logins, inboxes, and even seats inside software systems. If so, AI wouldn’t shrink software revenue. It could expand it.
Where’s the revenue come from? Agents are just like seats, heads, or authorized users. Ergo: A single agent needs to pay for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The sky’s azure and it appears to have no limits.
The write up adds:
Investors worry AI could hollow out seat-based pricing, the backbone of enterprise software. If one human can manage dozens of agents, why pay for dozens of licenses? Jha’s answer: because those agents are the new users. A company with 20 employees might buy 20 Microsoft 365 licenses today. If each employee gets five AI agents, and the workforce shrinks to 10 people, that could still mean 50 paid seats.
Google sells impressions, clicks, views, and non-skippables. Microsoft counts an agent as a onesie. If that agent gets agentic, then those other agents have to pony up cash too. Ad revenue is good, but this notion of charging for agents is just better. Well, it is if the customers write checks. France has already decided to stop paying for Microsoft and other American software and services. Other countries are likely to follow. But Microsoft can just charge more for agents. They work faster and demand more than some poor MBA slaving over an Excel spreadsheet at 3:25 am so the team leader can have it for an 8 am meeting.
Business Insider reports that Microsoft’s vision of oodles of license cash may run into resistance. Maybe companies will fire humans, so baseline license revenue erodes. Other firms may emulate France and look for Linux-centric options.
Here’s a thought: Companies can find ways to combine revenue models. Pay for a blue sky service and sell advertising to those who want to reach these profiled entities. If an agent wants fewer ad injections, the agent’s owner can just pay for an injected ad message.
Innovation lives.
Stephen E Arnold, April , 20, 2026
Telegram Rewrites User Messages and Censorship Blooms Like Flowers in the Township
April 8, 2026
Telegram Notes is almost back online. If there is art in a GOAT post, the image emerged from smart software. Grandpa Arnold is not Grandma Moses. The words, however much they appear to be output from a smart system, have been output by a still living dinobaby with some humanoid features.
Our informal blog Telegram Notes is back online. Recent Telegram-related posts appear to have been blocked, scrubbed, or otherwise disappeared from LinkedIn, a couple of LE and intel-related groups, and from a freedom loving, privacy oriented blogging service in lovely South Africa. No surprise to me.
Filtering and Monitoring?
Microsoft and LinkedIn should know what my team and I have been doing. If you don’t understand the methods used to monitor and respond to information not on the agenda of the world’s best developer of email programs, just navigate to Browsergate and work through “LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer.” With these alleged data, one wonders, “How did Microsoft/LinkedIn get smart software so very, very wonky?” And the South African operator? No clue. I learned that my content was “flagged” as AI generated. I am not sure whether to be flattered or baffled.
Thanks, Venice.ai. You did not tell me I was creating an abusive image today. Outstanding. Too bad the illustration is just good enough.
Cape Town Cares
The South African censorship move was courtesy of a free spirit in Cape Town, South Africa. (Those townships on the road from the airport to the central city are a delight. Shabeem thinking may be prevalent outside of these residential spaces.) I know that this dinobaby is not the swiftest 82 year old prowling the rest home’s grounds, but it is interesting to think that I am relying on smart software to produce snappy phrases like “write up” and “leadership” in my idiosyncratic way. I even have a GenX or GenY explanation of the content removal. If you want to check out where you too can have your content sanitized, navigate to the cute privacy first just censored BearBlog at https://bearblog.dev/.
Back Online with Telegram Notes… Sort Of
We have managed a new post about Pavel Durov’s Telegram. The write up explains that Telegram has deployed an AI editor in its Messenger container. What’s interesting is that when a Telegram user enters certain phrases, the Chinese large language model changes user content to an acceptable Chinese Communist Party form. You can read that at https://shorturl.at/GhSST.
We haven’t worked out the listing of articles so each appears with the most recent at the top of the stack. There are some definite spacing weirdnesses, and one of my semi-capable team is working on that issue as well.
Observations
A few dinobaby thoughts zipped slowly through what passes for my brain these days:
- When writing about a service like Telegram and posting that information in the US, censorship happens. The vendors insist it doesn’t, and I know that vendors especially like the BAIT (big AI tech) outfits never, ever fabricate or stretch the truth.
- Whatever angle we are taking on Telegram, Pavel Durov, the TON Foundation, TONcoin, TON Strategy Company, AlphaTON Capital, and the cast of characters associated with this sprawling system — someone, somewhere is taking the trouble to block the content.
- Online has become an interesting place. It is populated by Softies, Cape Towners like Herman Martinus, MBAs at LinkedIn, and BAIT guardrail developers.
I still find people like Moti Cristil, Oskar Hartmann, Manny Stotz, Yuri Mitin, and the GOAT himself Pavel Durov fascinating professionals. When you are 82, I hope you find a hobby as fulfilling as mine. Most of the stories about Manny, for example, do not get the timeline for his Kingsway plays straight. Few know about the estimable elite-only Equium Club which operates in places where movers and shakers move and shake. Not too many people have paid attention to the interesting career trajectory of a Ph.D. who worked for Cambridge Analytica and now serves as the president of a company engaged in AI compute leasing and online games named AlphaTON Capital with Enzo Villani, a former NASDAQ professional assisting the firm. The share price of ATON (the Mitin / Villani company and not the Russian bank of that name) was about $0.32 per share on April 7, 2026. That share price is below the NASDAQ threshold for a listed company.
The people in the rest home think I do real work. Nope, I have a hobby, and it is attracting attention from LinkedIn and the fellow who thinks his Bear Blog product is a garden. I think I understand. Gardens have to be pruned. I wonder if Herman’s AI identification system thinks this post you are reading was generated by one of the large language models. And LinkedIn / Microsoft, how can you have so much information about LinkedIn users and you continue to output truly peculiar software. Outlook in space? Nope, a giant technology company lost in space and flailing because its tether had a quality problem.
Oh, well, back to my hobby.
Stephen E Arnold, April 8, 2026
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