JAKARTA - Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the next two years will be a difficult time for the technology industry, especially the completion of the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing demand for products to decline, as well as an increasingly volatile global economy.
"The next two years may be the most challenging because, however, we did experience a lot of acceleration during the pandemic and there was some normalization of that demand and, above that, there was a real recession in most parts of the world," Nadella said during an interview with CNBC International last week.
Even so, said Nadella, the long-term growth outlook for technology companies is still strong with new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), but the increase will occur after going through some difficulties.
"Combination of pull-forward and recession means we have to adjust and will rotate through the demand cycle and, in reality, get out of it with what could be another big growth cycle for the tech industry," Nadella said.
Microsoft, Nadella said, is like many other companies in the world where the economy is, also in recession or threatened, reducing costs to deal with slowing demand and economic pressure, including laying off workers.
In October, the company announced layoffs, and was not alone with 18,000 workers cut by Amazon and 11,000 by Meta.
Currently, Nadella said Microsoft is making its expenses in line with the new revenue trend. He wants to manage costs in the short term while investing for the long term.
"In the end, just because we are a technology company doesn't mean we are the most efficient in what we do. Because the paradigm has changed, along with the standard increase, we have to measure ourselves with new standards. We are not immune to global change," Nadella said.
Another reason for the long-term optimism, is AI, which Nadella says will trigger the next era of computing.
"If you say mobile and cloud are the last paradigms, then is AI. That will happen, in my opinion, in the next two, three years. I took it back to 2007, 2008, was when the cloud and cell were big. I think we were in that phase when it came to AI, "explained Nadella.
Launching The Register, Wednesday, January 11, he pointed to ChatGPT, a machine learning-based text interface for the Big Language Model (LLM) launched in November by OpenAI.
ChatGPT, can answer questions by way of conversation. This technology promises for various use cases, Microsoft reportedly integrated it into its Bing search engine and Microsoft Office.
Microsoft in 2019 invested $1 billion in OpenAI, now the company is reportedly negotiating with startups for other investments and using OpenAI technology in Azure.
"For me, the work of knowledge, information work, frontline work, software development, everything can be changed by AI," said Nadella.
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