Microsoft has confirmed it won’t stop adding AI features to Windows 11, as it still believes in an “Agentic operating system.” At the same time, Windows boss Pavan Davuluri, who faced heavy backlash after teasing this AI-first future, is trying to calm power users. He says Microsoft still cares deeply about power users and developers.
“The team (and I) take in a ton of feedback. We balance what we see in our product feedback systems with what we hear directly,” wrote Pavan Davuluri, who heads Windows at Microsoft, in response to feedback that Windows is no longer the operating system for “developers.” “We know we have a lot of work to do.”
“…I want to spend a moment just on the point you are making, and I’ll boil it down, we care deeply about developers,” says Windows boss in a X post, first reported by Windows Latest.
Microsoft’s Windows boss teased an “agentic” future, and its userbase got upset
On November 10, Pavan Davuluri, who is the President of the Windows + Devices unit at Microsoft, shared an interesting post on X:
Windows is evolving into an agentic OS, connecting devices, cloud, and AI to unlock intelligent productivity and secure work anywhere. Join us at #MSIgnite to see how frontier firms are transforming with Windows and what’s next for the platform. We can’t wait to show you!
Pavan’s post on X was not really something Microsoft would have expected to blow up on social media, but it surprisingly did, and it could be because Windows users have had enough of their feedback being ignored to oblivion.
When Windows Latest spotted the post on X, it had approximately 500,000 views and approx 400 replies. Now, it has reached 1.5 million views, and Microsoft’s Windows boss closed the replies/comments to his post, as the criticism would not stop and eventually became toxic.
“Windows is not the same anymore.”
Ron Dunn, who has been using Microsoft’s products since 1982, says they no longer want to have Windows on any of their computers.
“I just closed my Microsoft 365 account and repatriated my data. I’ve replaced Office. I no longer use Azure, nor any Microsoft languages, databases, or development environments. AI has made you insane,” Ron Dunn wrote in a X post.
“Sounds like more bloat incoming? Have you considered making an OS that is performant and as bug-free as possible?” a user questioned, while another asked Microsoft how they plan to evolve Windows into an “agentic OS” when it’s struggling to correctly implement small taskbar icons.
“You can’t even build a taskbar, how would you build an AI OS?”
“You can’t even correctly implement small taskbar icons, which is something users actually want. You are getting overwhelmingly negative feedback about all this AI stuff. And yet you persevere,” says angry user, and this feedback particularly caught my attention because it’s actually quite interesting.
For those unaware, Microsoft recently added a feature that allows you to make taskbar icons “smaller,” but the catch is that the taskbar itself does not shrink in size to support the new “smaller icons.’ The end result is quite terrible, a huge taskbar with too many small icons.., and it clearly doesn’t look pretty.
Windows boss now says Microsoft is listening to feedback
Microsoft has finally responded to the criticism after it started to spread beyond regular consumers to some very well-known influencers in the software engineering space.
Gergely Orosz, author of a popular technology newsletter on Substack, declared that Windows is no longer the operating system for developers
“Can’t see any reason for sw engineers to choose Windows with this weird direction [pointing to agentic OS shift] they are doubling down on,” Gergely Orosz noted. “So odd because Microsoft has building dev tools in their DNA… their OS doesn’t look like anything a builder who wants OS control could choose.”
Gergely, who can’t stand Windows’ “AI” direction, declared that “Mac or Linux it is for dev.”
“Mac or Linux it is for devs,” argues Gergely Orosz.
This caught Pavan Davuluri’s attention, who promised that Microsoft really cares about developers.
“Developers, developers, developers.”
While the Windows boss would not give up on the “agentic” shift, he says Microsoft is always listening to feedback from developers, aka power users.
“The team (and I) take in a ton of feedback. We balance what we see in our product feedback systems with what we hear directly,” wrote Pavan Davuluri, who heads Windows at Microsoft, in response to feedback that Windows is no longer the operating system for “developers.” “They don’t always match, but both are important,” Pavan Davuluri, who heads Windows at Microsoft, explained in a post on X.
“I’ve read through the comments and see focus on things like reliability, performance, ease of use and more. But I want to spend a moment just on the point you are making, and I’ll boil it down, we care deeply about developers,” he added.
“We know we have work to do on the experience, both on the everyday usability, from inconsistent dialogs to power user experiences. When we meet as a team, we discuss these pain points and others in detail, because we want developers to choose Windows. We know words aren’t enough, it’s on us to continue improving and shipping.”
What the hell is an “Agentic OS,” and how could Windows evolve?
Whether you like it or not, the tech industry is convinced that autonomous agents will perform tasks on your behalf, and it’s going to be the future. This would mean the app, browser or the operating system will understand your intent and do things for you while you sit back and relax.
This includes planning your travel, buying you food, or booking a dinner date.., and all other stuff using your money (of course!).
Up until now, “agents” have been largely limited to browsers or web-based containers, but Microsoft wants Windows 11 to be a “native” platform for AI agents.
In theory, this means Windows stops being just a place to run apps and becomes a place where agents run the apps for you, coordinated by an orchestration layer. While it might sound interesting, the catch is that the AI agents are slow and not yet ready to perform actually useful tasks.
Why does Microsoft really want Windows to be an “agentic OS?”
We really need to understand one thing. There’s an “arms race” between tech giants building AI products.
Microsoft is not going to sit around doing nothing when overvalued companies like Perplexity are pledging to build “Agentic OS.”
To put it simply, investors are betting big on AI, and companies want to justify the “spending” by adding AI to everything. How does MS Office stay relevant in an agentic era? By having AI features. How does Windows remain a “personal computer” for productivity? By becoming an “agentic OS” that not only caters to consumers, but also to AI.
As someone who can rant for hours defending Windows over macOS or Linux, I am disappointed in the current state of Windows
I’ve grown up using Windows, and as much as I love Microsoft, I hate the current state of this operating system. Windows is no longer the “stable” or exciting operating system, and those who are really passionate about it genuinely miss the Panos Panay or Joe Belfiore era.
Now, we have ads, pop-ups, reliability issues, frequent Blue Screen errors, and PCs getting stuck at BitLocker, among other critical issues.
At the same time, Microsoft is adding AI features to Windows 11 and is lately pitching Windows as an “agentic OS.”
We’re truly witnessing the enshittification of Microsoft’s desktop platform. Over to you. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
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