Microsoft accidentally revealed messages about its expanding partnership with Walmart and the retailer's plans to use more Microsoft AI tools in the future.
The messages were leaked during a presentation by Neta Haiby, Microsoft's head of AI security, at Build 2025. A protester interrupted Haiby's presentation, which led the stream to be muted.
What are people protesting?
Microsoft Build was interrupted by protesters three times this year. The protests spanned across multiple days and occurred during Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's keynote and during a presentation by Microsoft head of CoreAI Jay Parikh.
The third protest was the aforementioned interruption of Haiby, who is Microsoft's head of security for AI.
The Verge covered and shared videos of the recent protests.
The protests center around Microsoft having cloud contracts with the Israeli government.
“Sarah, you are whitewashing the crimes of Microsoft in Palestine, how dare you talk about responsible AI when Microsoft is fueling the genocide in Palestine,” said former Microsoft employee Hossam Nasr during one of the protests.
The Sarah referred to by Nasr is Sarah Bird, who was co-hosting the Build session alongside Haiby. Bird is Microsoft's head of responsible AI.
Vaniya Agrawal was also at Nasr's protest. Agrawal disrupted Nadella at Microsoft's 50th Anniversary event earlier this year.
Nasr is also an organizer of No Azure for Apartheid, a protest group that demands Microsoft end its Azure contracts with the Israeli military and government. The group also calls on Microsoft to "make all ties to the Israeli state, military, and tech industry publicly known."
The No Azure for Apartheid Instagram account shared the above video.
Microsoft has not commented on the recent protests during Build 2025 or the Teams messages that were shown accidentally.
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