So while tech giant Microsoft (MSFT) is firing people, paring back its remote work options, and trying to make it all make sense, it rolled out one more component in a calculus that just does not seem to work out: the idea of “human-to-human-to AI collaboration.” Yes, Microsoft is preparing for a future in which AI is a group activity, despite the fact that it is firing a lot of its group and forcing the rest to operate out of a physical office. The puzzle did not daunt shareholders, though, as Microsoft shares gained fractionally in Thursday afternoon’s trading.
Elevate Your Investing Strategy:
- Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence.
Jared Spataro, who serves as Microsoft’s chief marketing officer for the AI at Work segment, noted “So far, AI-based work has been kind of a solo sport, and this fall it will clearly become a team sport, where you’ll be working together with other people and AI.” To that end, Microsoft brought out Copilot Pages, which are used as a means for “multiplayer AI collaboration.” Now, Microsoft is looking to build on that opening and increase its presence in multiple people working with an AI at the same time.
The problem, however, is that AI is fundamentally altering a lot of jobs. Who will hire all these people to do AI “team sports” when AI can replace a lot of those people outright? Spataro recently noted that AI is lowering the “…marginal cost of expertise” down to virtually nothing. While this might allow some people to get involved in new roles that previously required expertise—which can now be supplied by an AI—the question is, how long before that person is not needed at all?
The Broken Achievement
Meanwhile, Microsoft once again rolled out an unexpected development in its Xbox operations, by allowing a game publisher to remove an achievement. Achievements are rewards given for meeting certain criteria in a game. Whether it is finding a certain item, beating a certain opponent, or just doing things in a certain way, achievements are wide-ranging and provide a lot of motivation for gamers to keep going.
The achievement in question was from Xitilon, who released a game called Shaman’s Mask of the Rune Magic. One achievement called for players to beat a character called the Dark Knight, who apparently could only be found in the PC version, and not in the Xbox versions. So Microsoft, in a move that is not often done, allowed Xitilon to remove the achievement from the Xbox games.
Is Microsoft a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on MSFT stock based on 33 Buys and one Hold assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 17.18% rally in its share price over the past year, the average MSFT price target of $626.88 per share implies 25.26% upside potential.
