- Pavan Davuluri, head of Windows at Microsoft, responded to backlash over AI in Windows 11
- The executive admitted “we know we have work to do in the experience” in terms of getting the basics of Windows 11 right.
- This includes fixes for “everyday usability, from inconsistent dialogue to advanced user experiences,” but the executive misses a key point in terms of the hate for ads in Windows 11.
The Microsoft executive who caught a batch of criticism for comments about how Windows 11 is “evolving into an agent operating system” responded to that reaction and assured disgruntled people that Microsoft is not just focusing on AI with the desktop operating system.
Windows Central reports that Pavan Davuluri, vice president of Windows and Devices at Microsoft, has posted again on
Hi Gergely, I’m responding here and I think this applies to a lot of the comments people have made. I mean, a lot of comments 🙂. The team (and I) received a lot of feedback. We balance what we see in our product feedback systems with what we hear directly. They don’t…November 15, 2025
In the new post that responds to a complaint from author Gergely Orosz, who asks why software developers should choose Windows “with this strange address [Microsoft is] duplicating” (i.e. AI), Davuluri explains that he is responding to “a lot of comments that people have made.”
Davuluri says, “The team (and I) received a lot of feedback… I’ve read the feedback and focused on things like reliability, performance, ease of use, and more.”
“But I want to spend a moment on the point you make, and I’ll summarize it: We care deeply about developers. We know we have work to do in the experience, both in everyday usability, from inconsistent dialog to advanced user experiences. When we meet as a team, we discuss these pain points and others in detail, because we want developers to choose Windows.”
Simplified technology. Copilot in Windows 11 helps you change text size like a pro. 🔠@uravgconsumer pic.twitter.com/4vMXIiBNv7November 12, 2025
The footage shows someone getting help from Copilot when trying to resize text (make it bigger) in Windows 11, but this isn’t a good AI demonstration at all. Why not? Firstly, because Copilot only tells the user where to click initially, then the instructions fade away, meaning the user again has to ask where to click next.
The next stumble, a complete mistake in this case, is that Copilot then takes the user to the menu to scale everything (icons, the entire interface), not just the text; the text-only control is actually a separate menu (under Settings > Accessibility > Text Size, as the reader context box in post X makes clear).
Finally, the AI ​​advises the user to choose a 150% scale when it’s already selected (they ignore it and just click 200%, but there’s a confusing pause before that happens).
If it’s about changing text size “like a pro,” I’d hate to see Copilot’s guide veer into the realm of amateurs, and none of this really helps Microsoft’s insistence on its big push with AI in Windows 11.
Analysis: The elephant-sized ads in the room
It’s good to see Davuluri taking the time to address last week’s complaints, although the executive arguably didn’t have much choice – such was the negative reaction and the avalanche of media coverage that followed.
It’s also encouraging to see Davuluri acknowledge that Microsoft needs to improve in terms of daily usability and reliability of the operating system, and smoothing out performance issues, which still persist in Windows 11 years after its release.
The constant stream of bugs, which has felt even more intense since the big changes in Windows 11 24H2 (with its new Germanium platform, required for Arm-based Copilot+ PCs), is undoubtedly a big part of the problem for everyday users of Microsoft’s operating system.
As Windows Central points out, Microsoft’s constant introduction of new features in Windows 11 is causing problems, and more bugs, so the “continuous innovation” philosophy may need to be rethought. In other words, consider a shift to a model of rarer feature updates to allow time for more extensive testing and bug fixes.
But beyond stability and reliability, what’s notably missing from Davuluri’s promises about X is any comment on the bad feeling about Microsoft pushing people around to use its services. I’m sure you’re familiar with the various Windows 11 promotional trends, prompting you to use Edge or OneDrive, or Windows Backup, or sign up for a Microsoft account or even buy games. All of this advertising-type activity is what some people call a lack of respect for the Windows user in the thread of the executive’s new post (that and Microsoft’s telemetry, or data collection on the system).
Or, as Orosz, the person Davuluri was responding to, says, pointing to a comment from someone else (fj), Windows 11 “should be an operating system, not an ecosystem,” and Microsoft is losing sight of who the platform is designed for. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Windows 11 is sometimes less about the user experience and more about the Microsoft experience, and on a paid operating system, this is simply neither acceptable nor excusable.
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