How Microsoft Is Keeping People at the Center of AI
In this episode of our On The Road series, we sit down with Amy Coleman, Executive Vice President, Chief People Officer at Microsoft, to explore how leaders can scale AI transformation without losing the human connection at the center of work.
Amy reflects on stepping into the Chief People Officer role at Microsoft, the humility of becoming a beginner again, and why leaders do not need to pretend they have all the answers in moments of uncertainty. What matters is being honest, learning fast, and bringing people with you.
Her message is clear: AI and humans cannot be separated. As work changes, HR leaders have to help people understand what is shifting, what still matters, and how AI can unlock more creativity, curiosity, innovation, and human potential.
🎓 In this episode, we get into:
Why leaders need to become beginners again in the age of AI
How recognition helps people understand why their work matters
How Microsoft is thinking about human plus AI as work is reinvented
Why organizations cannot scale AI without bringing employees along
How AI can unlock creativity, curiosity, innovation, and human potential
What if recognition was not just a moment of appreciation?
What if it was also one of the clearest signals of trust, performance, leadership, and culture inside your organization?
Workhuman helps companies turn recognition into something much bigger than a thank you. It becomes a source of real-time human intelligence, helping leaders understand who is influencing others, who is strengthening culture, and where meaningful work is happening across the business.
Because the future of work will not be built by technology alone. It will be built by organizations that know how to make people feel seen, valued, connected, and motivated to do their best work.
With Workhuman, recognition becomes more than a program. It becomes a way to improve retention, strengthen engagement, uncover leadership potential, and connect culture directly to business outcomes.
00:11 --> 00:41
Welcome back, Amy.
How are you doing?
Thank you.
I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me.
Good to see you.
What is this, like 10th time?
Yeah, it's a lot of times.
How do we always turn up matching?
I don't know.
We're like on the same wavelength.
Always.
You've got good taste is what I think.
You know what though, yesterday I had like a t-shirt and jeans on.
Yeah, you did dress up for you.
I was relaxed, but I knew you were coming.
So I have to step my game up.
Every time you come along, I'm like, oh, Amy's here again.
You've got to like bring the button down now.
Yeah, yeah.
And the top button's on up, see?
Is that a new thing?
00:41 --> 01:12
I don't know.
I feel like I'm trying to be a millennial and do things like that.
You can ask your seven-year-old daughter.
She'll know.
She could dress me better than me, probably.
Mine do.
Mine have a lot of feedback.
Really?
Are you receptive?
I am, but I mean, it's a good thing, my job, I get a ton of feedback in that too.
So I'm used to like the harshness of it, but yeah, there's straight up no, yeah.
How things been?
Because obviously when you stepped into the role of chief people officer of Microsoft, it feels like yesterday that we spoke,
but it's been a while, right?
01:12 --> 01:46
It has been.
How long has it been now?
It's been like just over a year.
So like 16 months.
Yeah.
I know.
I know.
I know.
And I feel like I've lived a lifetime in that.
What do you know now that you wish you knew when you first stepped in?
All the things that you would ever say about a big change, like trust your instincts.
You know, you know more than you think you do.
I mean, the imposter thing comes back and like tortures you a little bit.
It doesn't go away.
It's always there.
It gets really loud at moments when you're in new groups and new rooms.
01:46 --> 02:22
And, you know, I was telling someone
Even though I've been at Microsoft forever, stepping into this new role is like going to a new school.
You don't know where the bathroom is.
You don't know the norms yet.
But listening to my instincts, knowing that I deserve to be there, those are the things I would tell myself.
It's incredible from when we first met to see you in a position right now.
I'm so happy for you as well.
But I think that's a good lesson for everyone that you're never really truly ready.
No.
You've got to jump in and figure it out.
And you can't wait for the conditions to be perfect.
You know, I hear a lot of people, even my daughters that are in college and getting ready to go into the workforce, they,
02:23 --> 02:55
you know, they want the perfect time and the perfect company and the perfect manager.
And I was like, no, it doesn't.
You just go and it's messy and you'll meet great people and learn a ton.
And if you keep learning, then I think that's part of the fun though, right?
The journey, not the destination.
Like I really enjoy the journey, right?
And in some ways, when I get to a level of mastery, I get a bit bored.
Yeah.
Yeah, you get a little itchy.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I want to be like Shane and I talk about internally of seek discomfort.
Yeah, yeah.
It's one of the things that we always talk about.
02:55 --> 03:34
Being uncomfortable.
Yeah.
We're talking about it at Microsoft about becoming a beginner again.
Yeah.
And it's super humbling.
Yeah, but I love it.
I love it too.
And like you don't know anything and you get to start and learn and it's, I don't know, fun.
I think it's super cool.
Do you feel like that's kind of where we are right now with part of this AI journey that we're all on?
Because there's no playbook out there.
So we're all kind of starting from the beginning on this journey together.
Yeah.
And we've been...
Similar places before where we didn't know said thing yeah um the new technology or the new something but this one feels faster but yeah
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i think the the like the playing field's kind of level because none of us really know and the people that i want to be
around are saying i don't really know what i'm doing but i'm here for it i want to learn with you i want to help
I mean, that's where the humility comes in, right?
Pretending you have all the answers.
It took me a long while to get to that point where I could be vulnerable with my team.
Say you don't know.
Yeah, it's unlocked a whole different relationship that I have with them now.
They'll come to me when they're struggling or they'll challenge me more because they know that I'm receptive to it as well.
04:08 --> 04:38
And that kind of helped shape our culture over the years and what we do.
Well, that makes you a good leader too, right?
Like when times are uncertain, what do you need?
You need people to step into it and not promise you certainty, but say, I'm here for it.
Here's contacts that I know.
I have your back.
Well, see, a big part of here at Work Human Live is we're talking about recognition, obviously, right?
How should CHROs rethink recognition when it's embedded into everyday tools like Microsoft Teams, for example?
Yeah, yeah.
04:39 --> 05:11
I mean, I think...
Recognition.
I think right now you get so much signal all the time.
I think sometimes folks forget to remind people about what matters and that your work matters.
And so I think in this real time world that we get,
we tend to get a lot of feedback on the constructive or the negative side, remembering
To do that in a really simple way is part of being a high performing team.
Like I want my team to know your work matters.
Like what you did today mattered and here's the outcome.
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And that's why it's important.
Not just thank you for showing up, but this is why you had such an impact.
Yeah.
And making that an important part of, I mean, I want to know what to do more of, right?
It can be as simple as that.
And I think honestly, HR has made it kind of complicated over the years.
We tend to do that.
We build on a bunch of great ideas and after a while, they collapse from the weight of it all.
So really making it simple to recognize people.
I tell people all the time, you come out of a meeting and you say, gosh, Chris, that was amazing.
05:46 --> 06:18
And this is what I loved.
That means a lot to people.
And people have forgotten to do that.
There's something also about doing it in the moment.
It's so powerful.
Being recognized in the moment.
But being specific about it.
It's something I've had to do over the years.
I'm definitely a culprit of great job.
And it's so easy to fall into that trap.
Whereas being more specific and prescriptive about what that is to drive those behaviors as well.
And it's even harder now where we have distributed teams all over the world.
06:19 --> 06:49
So it makes it even more difficult.
It's not the people that you just see every day in front of you, which is easy.
You know, it's funny.
In my job, I get a ton of feedback.
You know, we've got active listening systems and ambient listening systems.
But I do tell people, too, like, tell me what's going well.
Because I think that they feel like they've got to tell HR, which is the right thing, like what they need differently.
But also tell me what's working.
And we have to remember that with our teams, too.
Tell me what's working.
You know what it is?
I think sometimes we just take it for granted.
06:49 --> 07:27
Yeah.
Because it is growing so well that we only want to, yeah.
So you don't end up recognizing it or even sometimes noticing that it's growing so well.
Yeah.
If that makes sense.
You think about that in parenting.
Yes.
Like catching someone doing something great.
Yeah.
Like, oh, I saw you, you know, try that again right away after you failed at it or after you made a mistake.
And I loved seeing that.
And this is what I love.
I think it's super important, but it's hard to remember to do.
I know, like my daughter is seven and
That lights up, she gets so much satisfaction and joy when I recognize her that she then wants to show me more of it.
07:27 --> 07:57
She's like, Daddy, look at this.
She's training jiu-jitsu at the moment.
Oh, wow.
And we're training at home.
And we'll practice moves together.
Do you know?
You must know them?
Jiu-jitsu?
I'm like a fan of washing it.
I don't do it.
But I train with her at home.
I love that.
She practices on me.
But like, now I'm like, we're recognizing it.
I'm trying to move it away from like, and it sounds weird, but me being proud of her, but her being proud of herself.
That make sense?
07:57 --> 08:32
Yeah.
Yeah.
Instead of saying I'm proud of you, I'm like, you should be proud of yourself.
Yeah.
Going back to when you first asked me about being in the role, I think those moments, especially for girls, right?
Like, how do you learn to be proud of yourself?
How do you learn to know what you...
Or giving the world the way you deserve back, I think that's super important.
As a girl dad, that's awesome.
Because you want her, you want her to come out and
Be oriented towards what she, even if she didn't achieve the goal, what could she be proud of herself for?
08:32 --> 09:03
Some of the things I wanted to chat to you about, which I've been hearing over the last couple of days, is around,
of course we're scaling AI right now.
How do we scale AI in our organizations without losing the human at the core?
I think we have to remember that we, the human mind, invented AI.
We are at the core.
And I think somebody said to me, every time I say the word AI, I need to say the word human.
09:03 --> 09:36
And I think that makes a lot of sense.
So you don't have one without the other.
Because I don't think there is a world that we would want one without the other.
So, you know, we've talked a lot about AI taking the toil out or making your job easier, faster, better.
All of the things that I can do depending on what job you're in.
But what about talking about AI helping you dream more?
Like thinking about what it can unlock because you haven't had the opportunity to do that.
And I think that's the conversation we're missing about innovation and entrepreneurship.
09:36 --> 10:07
Curiosity.
Yeah, all of those things versus just making it.
I do appreciate...
That it, you know, it helps me write.
It helps unblock me from if I have writer's block.
But also really thinking about how I get to have a different...
I get to do my job differently.
I haven't exactly figured it out.
Yeah.
Figured it all out.
But I think there's some real unlock with creativity, curiosity, innovation that we'll have...
I don't know if it's more time for.
I don't know if that's the right answer.
10:07 --> 10:40
I think you're right.
I feel like for me, like...
You're so in the business, it's hard to focus on, or in the work, it's hard to zoom out, right?
Because you're in it, in the grind, the task, in all the work every day.
For me, it's allowed me to step back and what are the right questions to even ask?
Yeah, right.
Right like beat and that becomes be curious the critical thinking like all of those really human power skills skills decision making judgment judgment
10:40 --> 11:17
yeah critical thinking EQ yeah all of that stuff right like and but I realize I'm having to help bring my employees on the journey
yeah because they're like we free up this time they're like what do I do yeah
So now I'm having to help provide some guidance.
We're working through it slowly together.
This isn't some big bang.
That's right.
That's right.
Like, you know, I've got access to all of these AI tools.
That's the solution.
No.
That's just the beginning.
Yeah, that's just the beginning.
What are we solving for?
What are the right questions?
We're adding AI on top of processes that could be just, we don't need anymore, if that makes sense as well.
11:17 --> 11:49
So like fundamentally breaking down everything we do and starting from scratch.
I was talking to another CHRO of an AI first company and she was saying to me, it was a couple months ago,
and she said, I start my day now, instead of in any sort of call it information worker starting your day,
whether it's Teams or Slack or Outlook or Gmail or whatever,
Instead of starting her day there, she starts it in AI.
And I thought to myself, like, wow, I hadn't thought about that.
11:50 --> 12:21
Like, how do I start my day there?
But there's no lack of her and her team.
Like, they're just doing work differently.
There's no humans that have been left behind.
They're in it with her, but they're doing their work differently.
I think my team and I, just like you and your team, we're trying to figure it out, right?
Yeah.
We're not going to apply AI to every process, but actually looking at like, okay, where can AI help?
Where can it be a tool?
Where can I be AI first and think like, what if AI could do it all?
Then where do I want the humans to be involved?
Like turning it on its side.
12:21 --> 12:54
I think we're just in that messy part where we're trying to figure it out.
And people like you and I are excited about that.
We like change.
We like discomfort.
It's us slowing down and bringing people along.
You're right.
I think one of the themes that have come out the last couple of days is like, also,
Don't forget to bring your employees along with you but also is the business ready to absorb that amount of change yeah because we
already have a lot yeah this coming out right is it busy business even ready to absorb this much change so quick there is
12:54 --> 13:29
a readiness part of that the conditions that i'm not sure yeah there's there it's super it's super challenging and
I don't forget that with employees or with any human,
like we were successful in all the things that we did and that got us here.
So it's hard to say, let all that go.
A hundred percent.
And many people's identity is defined by those tasks and that work.
So you remove that back.
Yeah.
Even their seniority in an organization may be tied to that.
13:29 --> 14:01
How they're rewarded.
Yep.
How they're recognized.
The way we compensate people has to be completely...
All the incentive structures.
It has to be...
Right.
It has to be looked at and like, is this what we want it to be?
And I think that part's scary for people, even if they can't name it.
Yeah.
And then, you know, I'll have leaders say to me, Chris, like, we don't have time to bring people along.
And I'll, you know, I have to remind them that
Being scared, if you're fearful, you're never going to be at your best.
So being a high-performing team that's scared, that's not even a thing.
14:02 --> 14:32
And so...
I think bringing people along is super important.
That's why I'm glad, despite all the talk about AI, a lot of the conversations I've had have been around psychological safety,
have been around grit, and those real human elements.
It's never a technology issue.
No.
It's a cultural transformation.
It's a mindset shift.
It's never the technology.
You look at all the big ones, right?
Like we talked about the electricity and the steam and you look at all the big-The internet.
14:32 --> 15:06
Yeah, the internet, mobile phones, even the ATMs versus the tellers,
all those things and you look at it and it was very rarely a technology issue.
Especially for the general purpose technologies.
We can't even see what some of the paths are yet.
What will be some of the jobs that
You know, think if I had told you 20 years ago, like, being an influencer is a job.
Like, we didn't know that.
Well, people laughed at me when I started doing this 20 years ago.
They're like, what, are you going to do a podcast?
People are going to listen to it?
Listen, I know I won't let you go, but before I let you go, what are you most excited about?
15:06 --> 15:38
As you look ahead to the future, what fills you with joy and energy?
Oh, I love that question.
Um...
So if I was going to stay on topic,
I do think there's this amazing unlock of human potential with AI that I can see what we could solve,
whether it's in health or climate or...
There's a lot of things that I think now almost look so much more solvable now that I think is super exciting.
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And then what brings me joy?
Like, honestly, I get to be a part of it.
We've gotten to reinvent work, where it's done, how it's done.
And now we're reinventing what work is.
And it's an absolute privilege to be in a spot that I get to think about it and work with people like you and work
with my team and tell my daughters, like, you're going to, you know, you're going to inherit this world.
And how can you guys make it better?
And those things bring me joy.
It's a good reason to wake up every day.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, listen, I appreciate it as always.
Enjoy the rest of the event.
I'll see you soon.
All right.
Thanks so much.
Thanks.
Amy Coleman, Executive Vice President, Chief People Officer at Microsoft.