Microsoft Was Considered Invincible - Now AI Reprices Interface Complexity

This text examines a potential strategic shift for Microsoft as artificial intelligence reduces the historical necessity of complex software interfaces. The author argues that while the company remains financially robust, the "interface tax" of navigating fragmented applications is becoming an avoidable inefficiency for modern businesses. Rather than a total collapse, Microsoft faces a decentring similar to IBM’s past, where it may transition from providing user-facing tools to serving as an essential infrastructure substrate. The source suggests that organisations should proactively test post-interface workflows to discover how much human interaction with traditional software is actually required. Ultimately, Microsoft’s future survival depends on controlled self-disintermediation, moving away from being the place where people work to becoming the invisible layer that makes agentic work secure and governable. Read the article.About the Author - Greg Twemlow writes and teaches at the intersection of technology, education, and human judgment. He works with educators and businesses to make AI explainable and assessable in classrooms and boardrooms — to ensure AI users show their process and own their decisions. His cognition protocol, the Context & Critique Rule™, is built on a three-step process: Evidence → Cognition → Discernment — a bridge from what’s scattered to what’s chosen. Context & Critique → Accountable AI™. © 2025 Greg Twemlow. “Context & Critique → Accountable AI” and “Context & Critique Rule” are unregistered trademarks (™).