Inside Microsoft’s high-stakes push to win back its AI lead

Good morning. Microsoft was once the undisputed front-runner of the generative AI boom, fueled by a $13 billion Open AI 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, not some scrappy startup where the CEO routinely logs on for coding sprints with the developers. Nadella is concerned enough about the company’s AI strategy that last October he announced he was stepping back from some commercial duties to focus on AI research, product innovation, and the build-out of AI data centers.” Microsoft shares have slid from their all-time high as investors reprice the software complex through what Wall Street is calling the “SaaSpocalypse,” a name for the brutal repricing of subscription-software multiples in the face of AI coding agents. Microsoft, once positioned as the AI cycle’s biggest beneficiary, has become one of its most prominent casualties. Microsoft share price declined 34% from Oct. 28, 2025 through March 27, 2026. Nadella has been CEO for 10 years and as Kahn points out, he steered Microsoft through the desktop to cloud shift. But AI is fast-moving. As Kahn writes: “This is the story of how Mi