alt.hn

6/2/2026 at 6:19:27 PM

Microsoft announces Scout, an autonomous AI agent built on OpenClaw

 https://www.computerworld.com/article/4180103/microsoft-unveils-scout-an-autonomous-ai-agent-built-on-openclaw.html

by EvanZhouDev

6/2/2026 at 10:24:05 PM

Wow, listening to the article [a], with the flat, tinny AI voice - it's hard to shake the feeling that this is satire.

And in the YouTube video, I think I glimpse the AI delegating and assigning work to the user (hey, you should review this file/presentation) - via Teams or some other chat interface that probably grabs your attention with an obnoxious ping!

Ironically, the vision they seem to be peddling looks quite close to what NocoBase[n] is selling.

Key difference being that NocoBase at least try to increase human agency.

They both suffer a bit from 4gl flaws; how do you version your code, how do you move it to another system, eg when changing employer.

Like, how do bring your customized Chad - senior assistant - with you to Google workspace or fastmail?

For NocoBase AFAIK they have modules, but no real versioning - so I don't see how it is a good fit for developers.

I just recently came across it as I was looking for a ticketing system - and no, I don't want to build my own in a 4gl system if I can help it. But holy shit would I be more inclined to let our org users play with NocoBase rather than set things on fire with chaos agents running on top of OpenClaw!

PS: We looked at libreDesk (too simple, missing things like merging issues) - looks like we'll go for FreeScout.

I'm kind of sad that Trac/Apache bloodhound died (and I think died, not just became feature complete) - they worked pretty well for email first support tickets.

[a] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/06/0...

[n] https://www.nocobase.com/

by e12e

6/3/2026 at 3:42:35 PM

So many SMEs (most of who live in a MSFT world) are still figuring how to sign up for Copilot let alone anything more advanced.

by nigelglenday

6/2/2026 at 8:04:49 PM

Microsoft is still going to win because they are the no risk option for many businesses but wow I might actually be embarrassed to be part of these efforts. I hate to use such hyperbolic language too but they have continued year over year for the past 3 years failed to deliver in AI. From the useless frameworks they have been building on the Azure side, the partnership with Anthropic where they are still building copilot to be uniquely their own (and confusing) and now this. It is extremely interesting to watch this unfold!

by infecto

6/2/2026 at 10:41:05 PM

> ... but they have continued year over year for the past 3 years failed to deliver in AI.

The vibes may not be with them but enterprise adoption seems to be:

https://www.a16z.news/p/leaders-gainers-and-unexpected-winne...

At $37B they also have the highest publicly disclosed AI ARR in the industry, so the article above is probably not too wrong. Sure it can all go sour in the future, but so far they seem to be doing better than most in the industry.

MSFT has never done too well on the vibes meter, but also it seems vibes don't matter as much in enterprise.

by keeda

6/3/2026 at 12:34:16 AM

This is likely more to do with data security than feature set. M365 Copilot is the only provider that offers some level of confidence that data will stay within tenancy bounds.

For a lot of businesses outside of the US, using other cloud models is considered a serious data risk.

by soundworlds

6/3/2026 at 2:47:58 AM

Right but that’s my point of them winning. They power the world’s businesses which have data agreements in place already and they have restructured renewals now to throw in copilot. People are not using it because it’s great but it’s all that’s available for a large number of orgs.

by infecto

6/2/2026 at 9:44:14 PM

The thing is that I have to agree with you. It'll take Microsoft killing a large enough company for execs to start taking notice.

by gchamonlive

6/2/2026 at 9:32:47 PM

Huh? Every enterprise uses MSFT. They aren't going anywhere.

by joemazerino

6/2/2026 at 10:38:22 PM

isn't that exactly what the comment you replied to is saying

by throawayonthe

6/3/2026 at 2:49:13 AM

Huh? That’s what I said. They are going to win but wow the AI product team lacks a lot of imagination. I feel like an arm chair jerk saying it but they have had years to copy others and still don’t. They have the data agreements with business but lack product vision.

by infecto

6/2/2026 at 8:16:49 PM

How's your IBM mainframe doing, these days? Wait, you use Watson, right?

IBM still exists. They're the perfect example of how far a corporate behemoth can keep rolling after it effectively dies.

Microsoft is effectively dead.

It's easier and less hassle to use Linux desktop environments than to wrestle with Windows bullshit. Their flagship product is a sad joke, their leadership is flailing for purpose, and their entire corporation is bloated and unable to focus on anything meaningful.

That doesn't mean they'll disappear tomorrow, or in 5 years, or even in 20. They've already lost whatever relevance they had, and will have to fight to get it back. There will be something called Microsoft still churning recognizably Microsoft slop, because they have a lot of money and resources with which to continue flailing.

It's the year of the Linux desktop, and Windows has fallen.

by observationist

6/2/2026 at 8:28:07 PM

>IBM still exists. They're the perfect example of how far a corporate behemoth can keep rolling after it effectively dies.

wish i ran a dead company that did 67 billion in revenue last year, with year-over-year increases.

>Microsoft is effectively dead.

damn, and this dead company did 280 billion in revenue last year.

(you have a ~unique~ definition of dead.)

by john_strinlai

6/2/2026 at 9:05:51 PM

But can really say any of their products are top of their respective niches? Windows, Xbox, Azure are not the gold standard. They had the lead or close to it in these niches but floundered that.

I never understand these takes like they did this much in revenue. OP acknowledges that, they have enterprise down and are too big to fail. What’s to say they couldn’t be doing more revenue? Or even better year over year if they played their cards right. Don’t get me started on GitHub and VSCode. Popular projects are leaving GitHub and VSCode wasn’t able to monetize itself where many forks were able to do so.

by theturtletalks

6/2/2026 at 9:16:34 PM

If Windows isn't the gold standard having 70% of the market, then what is? Azure is in second place not by far after AWS. And these are huge, HUGE markets. I wouldn't say your local grocer is dead because it's not Costco, and of course by this logic Costco is itself dead because it's not Walmart.

by wan23

6/2/2026 at 9:34:21 PM

Maybe we are jumping the gun on Windows. My echo chamber is tech people and they seemed to have lost faith in windows after they Windows 11 introduced ads and plugged every hole that allowed to bypass needing a Microsoft account. Gaming and anti-cheat not working on Linux will keep that market share high for a while.

by theturtletalks

6/2/2026 at 9:18:06 PM

You don't need to be the gold standard to make obscene amounts of money. Product quality and financial success are only loosely correlated at best.

by dafelst

6/2/2026 at 11:31:16 PM

> wish i ran a dead company that did 67 billion in revenue last year, with year-over-year increases.

Didn't IBM used to be north of US$100B/yr?

by justinclift

6/2/2026 at 9:23:06 PM

yeah its kindda wild calling one of the largest companies in the world effectively dead because you don't like their AI strategy.

by altmanaltman

6/2/2026 at 8:23:28 PM

> Microsoft is effectively dead.

Microsoft is the 4th largest company by market cap.

by andsoitis

6/2/2026 at 8:28:06 PM

Tesla has shown very conclusively that that metric has almost nothing to do with reality.

by vitally3643

6/2/2026 at 9:14:45 PM

Tesla trades at a massive multiple, Microsoft doesn't. I think a lot of you just hate Microsoft and ignore (or rather prefer to pretend) the reality that the world runs on it.

by partiallypro

6/2/2026 at 8:26:59 PM

Enron was 7th.

by economistbob

6/2/2026 at 8:42:12 PM

Yes. They're not in any danger of disappearing. They just don't have any purpose anymore. They don't provide anything to the market that can't be gotten elsewhere, more cheaply, at higher quality, with better support, or with any other product advantage you might suggest.

The only advantage they have is inertia; software works on windows that doesn't work on other platforms. Those are a tiny, tiny percentage of cases. Microsoft brings nothing to the table; you're going to have an easier time, be more secure, spend less money, deal with less hassle, if you use Linux. Linux hassles me less over the course of a month than Windows does in a single day of use.

So yeah, Microsoft has a lot of wealth and resources. They don't have a point, anymore. There's no innovation, progress in development, novel or unique products, etc - they're effectively dead, as far as the market goes. They're going to have to undergo an epic struggle and battle for relevance, or within 20 years they're going to be a lot like IBM or Yahoo or even Bear Sterns.

They're the 4th largest company because they underwent an epic struggle and seized on a purpose and were driven to develop the best in class enterprise operating system and went tooth and nail against Apple for decades. Now they're a second rate mishmash of adtech surveillance grifting, meaningless, flailing product development, prancing around and cashing out the reputation that was built, and supremely vulnerable.

But yeah, they're big. I'm sure that will suffice to keep them alive for a long time. There just won't be a point - unless they get leadership that revitalizes the entire organization. I don't see that happening.

by observationist

6/2/2026 at 10:20:40 PM

It's like Oracle. They became a law firm. They only just happen to use software as an excuse to get free money from the government.

The main purpose of the software is as a narrative device for making sales.

by jongjong

6/2/2026 at 10:54:07 PM

microsoft won't die because of Entra. enterprise IT will never migrate to anything else; they are mostly incompetent.

by aniceperson

6/2/2026 at 9:52:24 PM

Sorry, very much disagree:

- c# is a great language that is looked down on by people who haven't used it.

- typescript is also amazing and has helped massively in web front end development and backend.

- .net is cross platform especially in the backend world.

- windows backwards compatibility and hardware support is way better than the alternatives.

- yeah windows 11 is full of so much adware crap it's a shame but i recently switchedy home desktop back to it after giving up trouble shooting a network card driver issue on Linux. The same issue I've encountered multiple times over 22 years running on different hardware.

- and all my gog games just work on windows :)

- yes I know proton, it's amazing, I have a steam deck, but not everything works easily or at all.

by pipes

6/2/2026 at 11:28:23 PM

I hate powershell but if you actually need a quick, just works on win/mac/linux… powershell does the trick.

by conception

6/2/2026 at 9:20:43 PM

IBM owns Linux thanks to Red-Hat investments, alongside all the ones that have done directly.

GCC, OpenJ9, Wayland, GNOME, systemd,...

Valve has to translate Windows games to have any content worth playing on Steam Deck.

Everyone and their dog use VSCode, npm, Typescript, Github, LinkedIn,...

by pjmlp

6/2/2026 at 8:26:38 PM

I wish, but it's far from it.

There is no other IAM/SIEM solution that I know of out there that makes it possible for a single guy to manage the companies' strict compliance requirements.

The complete integration just keeps getting more valuable and hard to replace every day.

by grim_io

6/2/2026 at 8:27:25 PM

Eh, I don't think they're quite dead yet. Microsoft isn't a direct parallel to IBM. IBM ignored the cloud early and fell behind because of it, they had to buy Red Hat to remain any kind of relevance at all.

Meanwhile, Azure is the #2 cloud and still growing pretty fast. They own nearly the entire dev tool ecosystem at most companies (Github, VSCode, NPM), and pretty much every single F500 company's IT runs on Microsoft tech, for better or for worse.

The mistake is thinking that Windows is still their flagship product. It's not, it's basically a side quest now.

by thewebguyd

6/2/2026 at 10:13:54 PM

> It's easier and less hassle to use Linux desktop environments than to wrestle with Windows bullshit.

Almost every corporate IT deployment disagrees with you. Linux is free, if companies could switch to it with no negative consequences they would. And yet they don't.

by afavour

6/2/2026 at 9:20:48 PM

Are you high on your own supply, or did you genuinely hallucinate a reality where a $3 trillion company is dying because a handful of Redditors learned how to use Proton?

by gigel82

6/2/2026 at 8:47:47 PM

It's dead for you and me since we won't willfully use any of the slop products they put out, but as long as they produce the default OS for most of the PCs that the average Joe buys, they aren't going anywhere. I'm not entirely sure how this works, but I don't think there are many Linux distros/organizations that will pay for manufacturers to install Linux on the PCs.

The there is also the cloud like other comments already mentioned.

by Xfx7028

6/2/2026 at 8:16:32 PM

I'm sorry, did OpenClaw improve by orders of magnitude in the last couple of months? Maybe so because it was an absolute dumpster fire when I looked at it, you could taste the "vibe" it was so poorly put together, I can't imagine anyone respectable building on top of it, better to just steal the compelling ideas (agent with a cron wrapper)

by PUSH_AX

6/2/2026 at 8:45:20 PM

It is the least reliable piece of software I have ever used. While I was still using it I got into states that were completely broken and the easiest way to get out was to wait for the next version and hope that did something.

by robryan

6/2/2026 at 9:53:00 PM

Minor point, but is there a trademark issue here with Yahoo Scout? (the Yahoo finance AI summaries widget)

by mNovak

6/2/2026 at 8:24:08 PM

Neat! I have plenty of time to read these Microsoft announcements today because Microsoft 365 exchange online is borked and my emails aren’t going out and teams in browser is jank-city.

by 650REDHAIR

6/2/2026 at 8:29:55 PM

Easy solve! Have Scout hammer the page every two minutes and send you an email, text and Amber Alert when it’s back up! Welcome to Hell ™

by moshun

6/2/2026 at 11:28:46 PM

I think the publicity announcement addressed that:

>managed with the same rigor you expect from any first-party Microsoft service.

by fuzzfactor

6/2/2026 at 8:32:11 PM

I bet it‘ll start changing people‘s docs and sending emails without being asked to do so and then they have to dial it back.

by ruduhudi

6/2/2026 at 8:34:02 PM

>Microsoft Scout connects to apps such as Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, and SharePoint, and accesses data from chat, email, calendar, and contacts.

There's a running joke that you don't pay some mariachis for singing, you tip them to get them to go away.

In a similar vein, Maybe Microsoft can figure out how to monetize not having to use Windows as a service.

"You don't have to use teams and outlook any longer" is certainly a nice pitch.

by torben-friis

6/2/2026 at 8:55:52 PM

Adding full interoperability with Matrix clients as a paid add-on to Teams would be this

by luplex

6/2/2026 at 8:26:37 PM

What did i just read? Microsoft putting their name in total vibe coded slop that breaks every release and super bloated? And coding it is not even that hard

by pulkittt

6/2/2026 at 8:27:53 PM

> Microsoft putting their name in total vibe coded slop that breaks every release and super bloated?

They never seem to have any problem with this if you take out the words "vibe coded", so it's not that crazy to me that adding it doesn't make a difference

by saghm

6/2/2026 at 8:34:09 PM

What would be another example of Microsoft forking an OS program and slapping their name on it?

As far as I know MSFT started open sourcing some of their own tech just shy of a decade ago, but white labelling OS tech I haven't seen much, maybe WSL?

by TZubiri

6/2/2026 at 9:11:11 PM

Edge

by lgsymons

6/2/2026 at 10:59:07 PM

all of Azure infrastructure?

by aniceperson

6/2/2026 at 8:38:58 PM

> What would be another example of Microsoft forking an OS program and slapping their name on it?

I'm not sure, but it's not what I said, so I'm not sure why you're asking me. What I said is that if you take out "vibe coded" from "Microsoft putting their name in total vibe coded slop that breaks every release and super bloated", you get something that they already do. I don't see anything about OS programs in that.

by saghm

6/2/2026 at 8:32:15 PM

Bust when? It can't be more than a couple of weeks away can it?

Meta ruining it's pristine cybersecurity reputation, and Nadella throwing this buffoonery on the same week.

When the AI market crashes, it will be the first market crisis where employees will be hired en masse rather than fired.

by TZubiri

6/2/2026 at 8:16:03 PM

OpenClaw just seems so broken and insecure by-design. I feel like you'd have to be crazy to use it.

by moolcool

6/2/2026 at 8:31:46 PM

> OpenClaw just seems so broken and insecure by-design. I feel like you'd have to be crazy to use it.

Microsoft is about to introduce a worse and less secure version of OpenClaw to their Enterprise customers. What could go wrong??

by tartoran

6/2/2026 at 8:44:10 PM

They'll probably start selling _Microsoft Copilot AI Defender_ or something similar?

by wiether

6/2/2026 at 9:03:38 PM

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-agent-365

"Get the confidence to move from agentic AI experimentation to enterprise-scale operations by giving your IT and security teams a control plane to observe, govern, and secure every agent across your organization."

by spogbiper

6/3/2026 at 6:54:23 AM

Damn!

A bit disappointed by the name

by wiether

6/3/2026 at 1:22:45 PM

They'll probably change the name a few times, there's always hope

by spogbiper

6/2/2026 at 8:51:48 PM

Then it's a perfect match for Microsoft.

by emsign

6/2/2026 at 8:43:16 PM

The idea that people are desperate to get AI assisted support to book meetings or flights is utterly barking

TAX THE TOKENS

100%

Don't let these companies take from our societies without giving back

politicians: if you aren't taxing the tokens you ain't getting my vote

by chips_not_fries

6/2/2026 at 9:45:10 PM

Tax the tokens, I actually like that idea. It'd be like a gasoline tax -- drivers pay for infrastructure maintenance. In this case, token consumers would pay for the increased burden on the grid.

by pton_xd

6/2/2026 at 11:09:30 PM

If they are doing this, they should make tokens from open weights models tax-free. It will incentivize labs to make their models open.

by onesociety2022

6/2/2026 at 10:27:56 PM

This reminds me of when Microsoft announced Bing Chat (which became Copilot) as a thin wrapper around ChatGPT. It turned out their value added wasn't integration, but tanking the quality and usefulness of it.

by jdlyga

6/2/2026 at 10:34:48 PM

It's got a target audience.

by outofpaper

6/2/2026 at 9:34:16 PM

And its fuel are github copilot ai credits, burned in 2 days. Good luck habing a running business on scout and your credits are gone.

by SeriousM

6/2/2026 at 8:10:58 PM

I'm confused, did they forget to add "Copilot" in the name?

by vdfs

6/2/2026 at 8:40:37 PM

SCOUT: Sentient COpilot UTilities

by wiether

6/2/2026 at 8:14:34 PM

If you ask it its name, it replies "Microsoft Copilot Scout Enterprise Platform 360 for .NET (new)"

by reaperducer

6/2/2026 at 8:18:51 PM

Can’t tell if a joke or real

by baq

6/2/2026 at 8:30:31 PM

It doesn't matter much. It's a joke in both cases anyway.

by tartoran

6/2/2026 at 8:33:26 PM

_Final_v10.4_ActualFinal7

by JohnTHaller

6/2/2026 at 9:14:10 PM

Copy (3)

by hurfdurf

6/2/2026 at 10:01:10 PM

It’s not a copilot, it’s an autopilot.

by layer8

6/2/2026 at 8:35:55 PM

They are apparently calling the agents "autopilots", one might say the buried the lede on this product

by verdverm

6/2/2026 at 10:45:09 PM

[dead]

by ankit46_

6/2/2026 at 8:36:30 PM

[flagged]

by varispeed

6/2/2026 at 8:45:14 PM

They're working on it.

by protoster

6/3/2026 at 2:37:18 AM

Ahh Microsoft, my innocent child....

They didn't learn with CoPilot having no adoption.

They didn't learn with Windows 11 being completely useless

They didn't learn with GitHub having security breach left and right

Some companies never learn I guess.

by h4kunamata

6/2/2026 at 8:14:03 PM

Mark Zuckerberg has thrown how much into AI and Microsoft is passing them by as if they don't even exist. You know that meme about how IE is the browser eating paste, while Firefox and Chrome fight it out... Meta AI is the "kid" eating paste, while Google, Anthropic, OpenAI and Microsoft duke it out.

Edit for those curious:

https://devhumor.com/content/uploads/images/August2016/Chrom...

by giancarlostoro

6/2/2026 at 8:19:27 PM

Are they though? Microsoft is still in the eating paste phase of their journey. Copilot was a huge flop.

by eckelhesten

6/2/2026 at 8:41:27 PM

> Copilot was a huge flop

_Which_ copilot? Lots of big businesses are buying github copilot for their devs, I wouldn't call it a flop by any stretch.

by Octoth0rpe

6/3/2026 at 1:26:50 AM

Even if it were somehow a flop, whats Mark Zuckerberg offering? My key point still stands. Mark Zuckerberg is asleep at the wheel burning billions with zero to show for it.

by giancarlostoro

6/2/2026 at 8:23:28 PM

Don’t fall for the hype cycle. Just wait till the blogosphere confirms that it’s useful stuff.

I doubt you’ll feel so strongly in a month or two.

by cheschire

6/2/2026 at 8:49:29 PM

I already use Microsoft Phi offline, I would be more surprised if they made a model commercially that is worse than their open weight model.

by giancarlostoro