Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warned AI-using enterprises to guard their proprietary business knowledge, describing a “reverse information paradox” where purchasers pay for AI twice: once with cash and “again with something even more valuable” by feeding business data into models. “Over time, the information asymmetry becomes increasingly skewed,” Nadella noted, adding that “the seller learns more and more about you as you use what you purchased, while you learn very little about what the seller is learning in return.” The warning follows Microsoft’s own history of investing billions into OpenAI and pushing AI that slurps up business data, as well as large organizations pausing or restricting Microsoft Copilot deployments in 2024 over weak data governance and sprawling internal access rights. Enterprise data security outfit Securiti told The Register in 2024 that about half of more than 20 chief data officers polled had grounded Copilot deployments. Nadella cautioned that “models learn from ‘exhaust,’ the prompts people write, the tools agents use, and especially the corrections people make,” calling it “the kind of knowledge a competitor could never buy, and the kind that leaks almost imperceptibly.” He argued that knowledge generated through AI interactions ought to belong to the companies that create it.