You don't need to ask them twice.
- Microsoft is making Windows agentic, but users strongly oppose the move, and Microsoft seems puzzled.
- Users prefer targeted AI in apps, not AI injected everywhere (taskbar, filesystem, browser).
- If Microsoft ignores critics and forces Copilot everywhere, it risks alienating users.
Well, it turns out that Microsoft doesn't know why people dislike Windows' new direction. If you're just tuning in, the company announced that it's moving to make Windows an agentic operating system, which is when AI does most of the decision-making and heavy lifting. The company thought that people would love Copilot handling their PC for them, but the reality was a little jarring.
So, now Microsoft has a lot of backlash on its hands. People are flocking to social media to air their disapproval of the agentic approach to Windows. The problem is, it seems Microsoft doesn't get why Copilot is getting all the hate. Well, fortunately for it, people are very much willing to sit down and give the company a piece of their mind.
Microsoft's AI CEO is confused about the hate over Windows becoming agentic
Over on X, Microsoft's AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, made a post where they discussed their confusion. They specifically call out people calling AI "underwhelming," comparing their past, where they "played Snake on a Nokia phone," to having a "fluent conversation with a super smart AI."
Some people took the opportunity to tell Mustafa exactly why they're not excited about the new AI wave. One X user, @vxunderground, explains that they do think AI is impressive, but that Microsoft is "injecting a solution into a "problem" that doesn't exist." They believe that "We do NOT want AI in applications, the taskbar, our filesystem, our browser, etc," and that Microsoft should be picking and choosing where to implement AI for maximum effect instead of spreading it everywhere.
Some people, on the other handed decided not to mince words:
It seems Microsoft has a problem where its AI-focused work ethic clashes with what people outside its Redmond offices actually want. When a business believes that "AI is no longer optional," it's understandable that the person leading the charge doesn't understand why everyone else doesn't get excited over using Copilot in every facet of their life. Unfortunately, if Microsoft continues to wave away naysayers and forge ahead with its agentic plan, it may end up making more enemies than friends.
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Not surprising.
Long ago (circa 2007) I remember having a chat with an MS PM. The guy could not comprehend Windows Vista sucked. Internally, apparently everyone loved it.
By namlem 2025-11-2515:18 This makes no sense. Putting the AI issue aside, do Microsoft employees not get annoyed by file explorer frequently hanging or crashing?
> If you're just tuning in, the company announced that it's moving to make Windows an agentic operating system, which is when AI does most of the decision-making and heavy lifting.
They will do anything but let users make decisions about their own computers that they own. If having agency is so great, why does every Windows version take more of it away from me?
By altairprime 2025-11-256:271 reply Because you’re not a source of recurring revenue and therefore have no useful value to their annual growth target for revenue growth per year.
If they ship an AI operating system they can lay off a ton of costly interface engineers in favor of a Cortana search box and the cost offset of your freely-donated training data to their bottom line.
If AI succeeds, any corporation that has adopted it will drastically outpace those who have not in growth of revenue growth per year by already having dumped the deadweight ballast of human workers. Windows 11 is positioned to deliver on that promise, if only they can stick the landing, and they don’t understand why we all hate on AI because their largest paying customers are desperate for them to provide it, to unlock the exponential growth factor from the shackles of Still All Humans.
They assume most people don’t realize how much profit there is to be had from AI if they succeed, and so of course they think we’re confused — and in large part they’re right to think that. People do not understand AI is necessary to prevent the U.S. GDP bubble from popping — not the AI bubble, that’s just a sideshow. If AI succeeds, growth of wealth per capita continues (while us all working-class folks stay poor, but that’s not anything Microsoft would know or care about); if AI fails, much of the corporate economy shatters into dust, including Microsoft. Don’t we all want Windows to continue existing, etc.
This all isn’t certain to come to pass, but it’s a well-understood and significant threat in certain groups. No one will say it to anyone outside those groups — and so Microsoft is confused that we don’t like it, without explaining the existential threat to the future of Microsoft if it fails.
By aleph_minus_one 2025-11-2511:311 reply > People do not understand AI is necessary to prevent the U.S. GDP bubble from popping — not the AI bubble, that’s just a sideshow. If AI succeeds, growth of wealth per capita continues (while us all working-class folks stay poor, but that’s not anything Microsoft would know or care about); if AI fails, much of the corporate economy shatters into dust, including Microsoft. Don’t we all want Windows to continue existing, etc.
It is investment 101 not to put all eggs in one basket.
I immediately get it that some years ago an investment into AI (in the sense of NLMs) was a decent idea because in the (rare) event that people actually get NLMs to work decently, it would pay off big. But if you apply some common sense, already from beginning on it was clear that the hurdles to overpass so that AI becomes more than just some experimental toy were huge.
So, what Microsoft did was like investing, say, 1 billion USD into one single lottery ticket which with a probability of, say, 0.1 % gives you 50 trillion USD and with 99.9 % probability it gives you 0 USD, i.e. the investment opportunity has a huge expected value, but in all likelihood, it will burn money.
In a solid portfolio, you add some of these highly experimental investments to your portfolio, but you base your company on much more solid investments. The same statement hold for betting a big part of the future of the national economy on such a strange lottery ticket. I cannot find any other explanation for this behaviour than stupidity.
By yetihehe 2025-11-2514:39 > I cannot find any other explanation for this behaviour than stupidity.
I can find one other explanation: greed.
By Stevemiller07 2025-11-253:583 reply Most of the pushback seems to come from a loss of trust. People feel Windows is becoming more of a service built around telemetry and ads rather than an OS they control. Until Microsoft addresses that underlying concern, frustration will keep showing up.
By cwillu 2025-11-255:26 s/feel/have noticed/
"Hello!"
"Welcome"
When your device welcomes you, something super inappropriate is going on, unless the device isn't actually yours...
I never actually thought for a second that os updates would lose my files... until it proudly started saying on screen YOUR FILES ARE RIGHT WHERE YOU LEFT THEM
I knew then... that there was non zero chance those files will be right where i leave them. And sure enough it was months later some update deleted peoples files
By HugoTea 2025-11-259:08 To be fair, they added that after an upgrade removed all of your files, so perhaps they felt they needed to re-assure the public it wouldn't happen again. It's a shame they didn't instead invest resources into actually making sure of that, because I'm pretty sure it happened a second time.
By panxyh 2025-11-2511:57 "We (...)"
By getlawgdon 2025-11-255:34 OneDrive was the last straw for me.
