Worshipping at the touring evangelical church of the Microsoft AI Tour

Wednesday, 22 April 2026

ANALYSIS: Welcome to the touring evangelical church of Microsoft.

Auckland’s SkyCity International Convention Centre played host to the Microsoft AI Tour on Tuesday, for business leaders who were transforming their businesses with the use of agentic AI.

The theme of the glitzy sales event was, as Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella put it, that AI was all about “expanding frontiers” for everyone, and using AI agents to “truly improve the trajectory of work” with humans at the AI steering wheel.

The US tech giant’s mission was to “empower every person and every organisation in New Zealand and on the planet to achieve more”.

Nadella strode around the stage Steve Jobs-style like a prophet preaching the AI gospel of a technology that would lead to “human flourishing, our economy growing, and ultimately well-being in our society.”

There were very unKiwi whoops of excitement and adoration as Nadella took the stage. Squint, and you could have been at a mega-church meeting.

But there were lesser prophets on the Microsoft Tour who made it clear that AI was also about “cost out”, and that some people would have to “flourish” outside of their current jobs.

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“Technologist” Joel Macfarlane from Datacom, which earns its money helping businesses and local government deploy AI, didn’t think customers wanted to talk to inefficient humans. They wanted to talk to businesses’ super-quick AI agents when they wanted to do something like buy a laptop.

He saw a future in which by 2030 “we’re going to end up with somewhere around 70% labour compression in different categories” of the workforce. It would be “huge” cost out for shareholders. Businesses which did not transform their operations with AI would end up with higher costs, and would not be able to compete.

One expert at the University of Auckland’s Centre for Advancing Law and Technology Responsibly conference on AI threats and governance earlier this month said the AI industry had the worst elevator pitch in history: AI will take people’s jobs, and could even potentially run amok and wipe out humanity.

Half the pitch was heard at the Microsoft AI Tour, but it was aimed at business leaders, not rank and file workers.

This was not Nadella’s message, however, and he had the biggest stage on the Microsoft AI Tour, and the biggest audience.

The future he saw was of humanity “augmented” by AI agents that would enable them to do their jobs better, lifting productivity, and according to figures Microsoft paid EY to calculate, potentially boosting the New Zealand economy by up to $102 billion in annual economic value by 2038.

The jobs that would be done better would include seeking a cure for cancer, but mostly it was about better customer service.

Security at the Microsoft AI Tour was tight. Microsoft was prepared for some New Zealanders to try to hijack the event to protest.

There was more security than when Prime Minister Christopher Luxon opened the convention centre in February.

The queuing was reminiscent of an American airport, partly because it wasn’t efficient AI agents checking people in, but actual humans in purple Microsoft teeshirts. That seemed out of keeping for an AI sales event.

Bags were searched. Metal detection wands were employed.

The sign listing items people could not bring in seemed to have been flown from the US. It certainty had an American accent. No bull horns. No firearms. No tasers. No batons. No personal defence sprays. And no signs, banners, flags, hats or clothing representing activist or political groups.

Where did they think we were, Los Angeles?

Nadella thought Auckland looked like Seattle. It does. Auckland was used for some of the street scenes in Megan 2.0, a Hollywood movie about the existential threat of sentient AI embodied in kick-ass robot bodies.

The Microsoft AI Tour attracted some of the biggest CEOs in town. Fonterra’s outgoing chief executive Miles Hurrell was there. So was Jolie Hodson from Spark. So was ANZ chief executive Antonia Watson.

It was an event for AI decision makers who wanted their businesses to be AI “frontier firms” outcompeting their less technologically-savvy rivals.

AI decision takers in the lower reaches of the workforce were talked about.

Macfarlane said in company workforces there was a three way split in AI willingness and capability.

A third of the workforce was eager to use and experiment with AI, and had the skills to do so. The next third were willing, but lacked the skills. The last third had neither skills, nor willingness.

Macfarlane felt AI transformation of businesses would accelerate in the next 12 to 18 months.

That seemed to provide a window for workers to get on board with the AI programme.

Employers were encouraged to make their AI strategies people-centric, and to take their people along with them on their AI transformations.

Leaders from Westpac and rural financial services cooperative FMG spoke about how they were re-engineering their businesses.

Westpac had sped up mortgage applications using AI. FMG had just last week celebrated its first “digital employee”. It was called Rico, and it was providing AI agent assistance to FMG’s roving rural advisers, who visit farmers on their farms. It was helping them prepare for meeting farmers by curating information about them.

Westpac’s head of enterprise simplification Michelle Williams said: “It’s definitely around augmenting people, not replacing them.”

But, she said, Westpac’s mortgage team had been able to onboard 30% more applications in a year, with no more staff.

Even if there were no job losses, it was a vision of jobless economic growth.