Photo: Business Insider

Balancing work and life is no easy feat—especially when you’re at the helm of one of the world’s largest tech companies. Yet despite clocking up to 100 hours of work each week, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella manages to keep up with podcasts regularly. The secret? He doesn’t actually listen to them the traditional way.

Instead of spending hours tuned in, Nadella uses Microsoft’s AI-powered Copilot to summarise long podcast episodes into digestible insights in just a few minutes, reports The Indian Express.

Speaking about his routine, Nadella shared that he uploads the transcript of his chosen podcast to the Copilot app on his iPhone. On his commute to work, he asks the voice assistant to deliver a summary of the episode’s key points—allowing him to grasp the essence of lengthy discussions without committing too much time.

Beyond podcasts, Nadella relies heavily on AI agents in his daily workflow—often up to ten at once. From condensing messages on Outlook and Microsoft Teams to prepping for meetings and making quick decisions, these digital assistants play what he calls a “chief of staff” role in his life.

Known for his collaborative stance on AI, Nadella sees artificial intelligence not as a rival but as a partner. When Chinese research lab DeepSeek unveiled its new RWKV model, Nadella swiftly instructed Microsoft teams to integrate it into the company’s cloud platform—highlighting his eagerness to embrace promising technologies from across the globe.