Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has publicly rebuked considered one of his personal company vice presidents over a leaked technique memo that brazenly acknowledged the objective of constructing customers “addicted” to Scout, the corporate’s newly introduced AI assistant. In a message despatched to roughly 50 of Microsoft’s high software program engineers, Nadella known as the framing “nonsense” and recommended whoever wrote and leaked the doc “could wish to go work elsewhere.”The inner observe, first reported by The Info and obtained by 404 Media, was authored by Omar Shahine, the company vice chairman main the Scout group. It outlined a three-phase plan to take the assistant “from addictive app to agentic platform”—with part one labelled, in plain textual content, “make folks addicted.”
The ‘addictive app’ line Microsoft is now scrambling to disown
Scout was unveiled at Construct 2026 earlier this week as Microsoft’s first “Autopilot” agent—an always-on assistant constructed on the open-source OpenClaw stack and stitched into Groups, Outlook, OneDrive, and SharePoint. Internally, it was developed underneath the codename ClawPilot, as a part of a wider effort known as Mission Lobster.In accordance with the doc seen by 404 Media, part one reads: “Proceed delivery the standalone ClawPilot expertise. Pilot the UX, develop the person base, and construct the ability and gear ecosystem that makes folks depend upon it every day. That is already taking place organically.”Nadella’s response, posted to an inner board, was sharp. “That is completely a non objective! If something we’re doing the precise reverse,” he wrote. “We wish to ensure that AI empowers and provides actual worth to human endeavor and broad financial development! We must always be sure that our groups are clear about this.” He added: “Unsure what this doc is or who’s writing and leaking this nonsense! They might wish to go work elsewhere.“The memo, per 404 Media, lists Shahine and one other government, Jakob Werner, as its authors—and notes it was “co-created turn-by-turn with AI. Human verified each sentence.”
A leak that lands on the worst attainable second for Microsoft’s AI pivot
A Microsoft spokesperson pushed again on the habit framing in a press release to The Info. “Scout is for serving to folks accomplish duties extra successfully—not encouraging dependency. Our objective is not extra display screen time. It is extra time again.”The timing is awkward. Regulators within the US and Europe have sharpened their deal with AI merchandise and their potential for compulsive use, and Meta just lately misplaced two high-profile lawsuits tied to social media habit. For Microsoft—mid-pivot from conventional software program towards agentic AI, with Nadella himself framing the shift as a “platform shift” at Construct—a leaked memo utilizing the phrase “addicted” cuts straight towards the story the corporate is making an attempt to inform.One Microsoft worker, chatting with 404 Media on the situation of anonymity, known as the doc “very troubling,” including that habit is “one thing no product must be making part of its construct technique.”