Microsoft was recently hit by a 'Mike-rosoft' catastrophe — here's everything that transpired with insider emails and Copilot AI

What you need to know

• Microsoft Bing's VP recently shared an odd occurrence where someone mistakenly added every Mike/Michael in the company to a discussion alias.
• It raised concern among some of the participants in the group who viewed it as a trap while others used the group as an opportunity to connect.
• The Microsoft executive leveraged Copilot's capabilities to summarize the thoughts, concerns, and laughs shared by the Mikes at Microsoft in the group.

Microsoft has had a busy week, from avoiding a formal probe by the European Union because of its multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI to Xbox trimming hedges in PlayStation Store's backyard. But you might have missed the 'Mikerosoftcalypse' that took place internally in the company earlier this week.

Microsoft's VP for Bing, Michael Schechter, woke up to a slew of unread emails on April 16, 2024. The executive indicated that the number of emails he'd received was alarmingly high — a strange occurrence compared to what he's used to on an "average day."

Michael's first thought was that a major incident had happened overnight, hence the "larger than usual number of unread emails." This would've been the most 'obvious' and plausible explanation in this case.

However, this wasn't the case. Someone in the company mistakenly/accidentally added every Mike/Michael at Microsoft to a discussion alias (via The Verge). While this was a mistake, the discussion alias seemingly sparked a lot of interaction and engagement among the Mikes at Microsoft.

Michael Schechter leveraged Copilot AI to summarize the thoughts, laughs, and concerns shared in the discussion. A short while after the group was created, it was discovered that everyone was called Michael or Mike. Copilot also noted the group's purpose was unclear, but the participants used the rare opportunity to connect. Some expressed concern over the group, indicating it might be a 'trap.'

Interestingly, Eric Lippert, a programming language designer on X (formerly Twitter), shared an account of a similar incident in the 90s. Someone was trying to reach out to a "Mike from Microsoft" whom they'd met at a conference earlier but got 600 email addresses belonging to all the Mikes working at Microsoft. History sure does have a funny way of repeating itself!