Satya Nadella suggests AI will be the next ‘tidal wave’ after internet

The interview also featured Sam Altman, who described the relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft as "great."

The Microsoft-OpenAI relationship is stronger than ever. (Express image)

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella believes that AI is as important as the internet was in 1995, when its co-founder Bill Gates issued a memo urging his employees to embrace the web.

“The Bill memo in 1995, it does feel like that to me,” Nadella said on this week’s episode of The Circuit with Emily Chang. “I think it’s as big.”

The memo, titled “The Internet Tidal Wave,” emphasised that the internet would be a key driver of Microsoft’s growth. It argued that the internet was transforming the way people and businesses interacted every day.

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To realise its vision of democratising AI, Microsoft has teamed up with OpenAI. The latter’s technology powers Microsoft’s Bing chatbot and other AI products. In exchange, OpenAI gets to use Microsoft’s vast data center infrastructure for its own offerings.

“We have a great relationship,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on The Circuit. “These big, major partnerships between tech companies usually don’t work. This is an example of it working really well. We’re super grateful for it.”

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However, the partnership has also faced some challenges and controversies. Elon Musk, who co-founded OpenAI with Altman, left the company over disagreements about its direction and the establishment of a for-profit arm. He also claimed that OpenAI is now “effectively controlled by Microsoft.”

Altman denied Musk’s allegations and said that OpenAI is not for sale.

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Finally, in the interview, Nadella warned that the true impact of AI remains to be seen.

“We in the tech industry are classic experts at overhyping everything,” he said. “What motivates me is I want to use this technology to truly do what I think at least all of us are in tech for, which is democratising access to it.”