What are CEO Satya Nadella’s Top Microsoft Copilot Secrets?

Since Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft in 2014, the company has surged into a new era dominated by AI agents. 

Through its landmark partnership with OpenAI - which Microsoft supported with multibillion-dollar investments and exclusive cloud infrastructure - Microsoft has embedded foundation models into products like Bing, Edge, Microsoft 365 and GitHub Copilot. 

At a joint event for Microsoft and OpenAI at the start of 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said: “We’re so grateful to have a partner that shares our vision and our values of building advanced AI that’s safe and will have a very positive impact on society.”

With agentic assistance now woven into everyday workflows, Satya’s vision is transforming consumers’ relationships with software.

The CEO’s top three Copilot tips

In a video post on X on 24 October, Satya shares his top three “daily habits” within the Copilot AI assistant that he claims have become indispensable to his daily work and personal life.

1. “Hey Copilot”

Satya says that whether he’s working on a document or an email, he uses the voice-activated Copilot to assist with his project - which he describes as the most exciting assistance since the introduction of the touch screen.

He called it the most exciting new way to interact with a computer since touch technology was introduced, giving him “a new mouse, and it just happens to be a voice”.

“I can just invoke Copilot and ask it questions,” the CEO said. “It retrieves information and it’s just fantastic to have.”

2. Mico

The second feature highlighted is Mico - the new character of Copilot. Satya says that “it’s great to have a face to talk to”.

He describes Mico as a Socratic tutor - capable of providing information and teaching the user at the same time. 

Discussing how he and his daughter use the feature together, Satya says: “The cool thing about it is it taught us both what we wanted, you know, not just giving us information and it’s just wonderful.”

3. Groups

The final feature that the CEO uses every day is the multi-user mode - Groups.

“Now my friends and family can join a session and we can all jam together with AI,” he says, highlighting its importance in learning, coordinating and “staying in sync”.

Satya says Microsoft is “building fast” and encourages users to try out the new functionalities as they are his “go-to features”.

Microsoft’s commitments to AI

In his 2025 annual letter to shareholders, published on 21 October, Satya outlined the company’s AI strategy for the decade ahead.

He wrote that Microsoft is “thinking in decades, executing in quarters,” highlighting a balance between long-term AI ambition and near-term results.

“More than any transformation before it, this generation of AI is radically changing every layer of the tech stack and we are changing with it,” the CEO said.

Under his leadership, Microsoft operates more than 400 data centres across 70 regions, including what he calls “the world’s most powerful AI datacentre”.

The letter outlines that the “Copilot family” now serves more than 100 million users, illustrating Nadella’s vision of AI as “an on-demand collaborator rather than a passive tool”.

He added: “Our growth mindset is essential to our ability to continue leading this AI era.

“We must be learn-it-alls, willing to experiment, guided by evaluations and committed to continuous improvement.”