Even though it seemed that former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman would lead a new AI research division at Microsoft, he might still get his old job back. According to Bloomberg, the OpenAI board -- which caused chaos at the company when it fired Altman on Friday -- has reopened discussions with the former chief executive regarding his possible reinstatement. The talks are said to involve board member (and Quora CEO) Adam D'Angelo as well as OpenAI investors, some of whom have been pushing for Altman's return. According to the report, board members "largely refused to engage" with Altman until Monday, so these latest talks are said to be a significant development. Meanwhile, Kevin Scott, Microsoft's chief technology officer, said that his company will match the compensation OpenAI workers are currently receiving if they jump ship.

Artificial intelligence systems powered by large language models today are transforming how people work and create, from generating lines of code for software developers to sketches for graphic designers. Kevin Scott, Microsoft's chief technology officer, expects these AI systems to continue to grow in sophistication and scale--from helping address global challenges such as climate change and childhood education to revolutionizing fields from healthcare and law to materials science and science fiction. Scott recently shared his thoughts with us on the impact of AI for knowledge workers and what's next in AI. In your mind, what were some of the most important advancements in AI this year? When we were heading into 2022, I think just about everybody in AI was anticipating really impressive things to take place over the next twelve or so months.

One of the more intriguing technologies demonstrated at this week's Microsoft Build conference was OpenAI Codex, a machine learning model that translates natural language into code "across more than a dozen programming languages." In a keynote presentation entitled "The Future of AI Development Tools," Microsoft chief technology officer Kevin Scott said that "Codex lets us use natural language to express our intentions, and the machine takes on the responsibility of translating those intentions into code." You heard that right: the machine does the coding for you! This could be the beginning of a paradigm shift in programming. It certainly takes the low-code trend to another level, because now you can (potentially) use AI software to talk an app into existence.

As part of our AI For Growth executive education series, we interview top executives at leading global companies who have successfully applied AI to grow their enterprises. Today, we sit down with Kevin Scott, Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft. As the CTO of Microsoft, Kevin drives the technology giant's AI strategy and services. In this interview, he focuses on the intersection of AI and IoT and reveals how enterprises have successfully leverage the combination of these two emerging technologies to drive real business value. He also shares insights from his visits to industries ripe for disruption by AI and automation and key learnings for how managers can best prepare their workforces for the future.

It's about why we should be optimistic about a future that includes AI. The contrarian thing is that I think it's net beneficial even to people in rural parts of the country. I was a poor kid from rural central Virginia--Campbell County, a little town called Gladys. I went back there a year ago for the book. All the industry there evaporated years ago. Tobacco, textiles, furniture manufacturing all went poof. But some interesting things are emerging there now, some of which is powered by AI and advanced automation.

As part of our AI For Growth executive education series, we interview top executives at leading global companies who have successfully applied AI to grow their enterprises. Today, we sit down with Kevin Scott, Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft. As the CTO of Microsoft, Kevin drives the technology giant's AI strategy and services. In this interview, he focuses on the intersection of AI and IoT and reveals how enterprises have successfully leverage the combination of these two emerging technologies to drive real business value. He also shares insights from his visits to industries ripe for disruption by AI and automation and key learnings for how managers can best prepare their workforces for the future.