Microsoft’s current head of Windows, Pavan Davuluri, has posted on X saying that the future of the platform is one that is “evolving into an agentic OS,” weeks after the company reorganized the Windows division internally to better position it to bring an AI-powered Windows to market.
The post is more about Microsoft Ignite and how customers are using Windows as an AI platform, but it does reaffirm Microsoft’s plans to push Windows into becoming an agentic OS, one that the company has teased multiple times over the last few months.
But these days, with everything from a Microsoft Account being forced on everyone, to the OS continually trying to push you to use OneDrive and Copilot, people feel like Microsoft is now using Windows as an avenue to squeeze as much money from the user as possible. You have to remember, Windows isn’t free, and so none of this is acceptable in the eyes of many.
And it’s not just the ads and enshittification that people are upset with. Windows feels less stable than ever, with constant updates introducing new issues despite a preview program that’s designed to catch broken code before it ships. “It’s evolving into a bug-ridden slop pile … You guys have utterly destroyed it what was already a heavily flawed product in the first place,” another user on X claims.
Indeed, people feel like AI is not the answer to Windows’ current problems. Microsoft should be focused on getting the basics right before it tries to implement AI features and capabilities throughout the OS.
The last few years have seen Microsoft go AI crazy, to the point where it’s cutting budgets across the company in an effort to fund more AI projects and infrastructure. Xbox has seen massive cuts, as has Surface. Everything Microsoft makes feels worse right now because the company is too busy chasing the AI bubble. To Microsoft, if it’s not AI, it’s not important.
Unfortunately, based on how Microsoft has treated its customers and products over the last decade, the company is now facing an uphill battle when it comes to onboarding people into its own AI ecosystem. It seems not many people want to use Copilot, or OneDrive, or a Microsoft account, after the company has repeatedly let its customers down by cancelling products and features.
Had Microsoft done a better job at appealing to consumers and looking after them in the last decade, perhaps the company wouldn’t need to result to dirty tactics and hostile user experience design to force people into using their services. Maybe people would want to link a Microsoft account to Windows 11 and use OneDrive.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, that’s not the case, and at this point it’s unlikely to ever be the case unless the company makes some serious changes now. It has to pull back on the entification of Windows, and it has to ease off the AI pedal and first focus on getting Windows back into a good state first.
Fun fact: Windows 11 is the only modern OS that requires an online account during setup. Android, iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Linux distributions, and even Chrome OS all give you the option to use the OS with a local account. That’s how bad things have gotten on Windows.
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