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Former Microsoft employee Merill Fernando says the company’s layers of management and fragmented teams have slowed the adoption of useful technology. In a post after leaving to start his own company, he argues that smaller teams working with AI agents could help Microsoft roll out changes in months rather than years.

Fernando points to managed identities, a way for applications to authenticate without embedding secrets in code, as an example he says took a security breach and a subsequent initiative to drive wider adoption inside Microsoft. His claim that AI agents could speed up the company’s work is an argument, not a demonstrated result. That makes this a useful insider perspective on where AI might change how a large technology company operates, rather than proof that fewer staff will make it more innovative. Microsoft’s layers may be the harder problem to automate.

Discuss: Could AI agents genuinely help large companies cut through organisational silos, or would they mostly add another layer of process?

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