Why Microsoft has created its own print magazine

Of all the many ways Microsoft could mark its 50th anniversary, I wasn’t expecting the software maker to launch a magazine. “It’s our answer to a timely question: How do we earn trust and hold attention in an age of scroll and skim? How do we create Signal in a world of noise?” asks Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s chief communications officer.

Microsoft’s response to a world of people doomscrolling on X and TikTok is a print magazine that you can thumb through in peace and quiet. The first issue of Signal is 120 pages with a focus on AI, both as a topic and, to a small degree, a means of production. Microsoft hopes the magazine will bypass the digital world and reach business leaders directly every few months.

“People are overloaded with information, and a lot of the information is pretty ephemeral,” says Steve Clayton, the executive editor of Signal, in an interview for Notepad. “[Signal is] partly a reaction to that, which is: how do we create something that’s more thoughtful and has some more permanence, and is a bit longer-lasting than a five-second TikTok video?”

Signal looks like any high-quality magazine you’d find at a newsstand, complete with deep dives on Microsoft technologies, interviews with Microsoft executives, and some lighthearted quiz and trivia sections to round off the magazine format. It’s a magazine from Microsoft’s comms team, so don’t expect to read anything about Amazon or Google in here, or material that strays beyond a clean and tidy image of Microsoft. Instead, you’ve got guest appearances from CEO Satya Nadella and co-founder Bill Gates in the premiere issue I’ve read.

The deeper stories on Microsoft will look very familiar to anyone who has read Microsoft’s Source work, where the company writes its own stories about how its technology is being used throughout the world. These digital stories are a good reminder of how influential Microsoft is, but they’re not yarns that the company can easily pitch to journalists like me because they’re simply too self-promotional. Signal feels like a physical manifestation of Microsoft’s strategy with its Source stories.

“Microsoft Source and Microsoft stories has been our opportunity to go direct,” says Clayton. Microsoft has printed 1,500 copies of Signal that it’s distributing at its own business-focused events. “Fifteen hundred is a good place to start, and the uptake has been really good. There’s been a lot of demand for it,” says Clayton. “If we get through those and see more demand that we can’t fulfill, then we’ll go and do another print run.”

The publication schedule is still in flux as Microsoft gauges interest. “We’re starting to think about what the next few editions will be, and based on the reaction to this one, that will determine the size of the next print run,” says Clayton. Microsoft didn’t want to print 15,000 and have them sitting on shelves at its events, so it’s treading carefully for now with plans to publish every quarter or so.

A big inspiration for Signal was the Costco magazine that’s distributed to millions of members every month, a reach that makes it one of the largest magazines in the country and a steady way for the retailer to reach its customers. “The facility, the team, and production that they’d set up, we have a lot of that capability already, so it was an opportunity for us to turn our attention to a new thing,” says Clayton. Costco mails out more than 15 million copies of its magazine with each issue, but Microsoft isn’t expecting to scale Signal to those heights yet. “I don’t think we’re going to go and compete with Costco’s magazine anytime soon, put it that way,” says Clayton.

Signal, as you might expect, is very focused on how Microsoft’s technology is being used by businesses. That means it’s also very much focused on AI. I counted mentions on more than 50 of its 120 pages. There’s a story about a women’s soccer team in Spain that was recently promoted and grappled with the use of AI, a deep dive into how Vodafone is deploying AI, and another piece on how Microsoft’s research labs are using AI for science.

There are also parts of Signal that look more clearly like promotional material for companies using Microsoft technology, or the types of customer stories that wouldn’t interest readers of The Verge. But there are also interesting, meatier stories. The Vodafone piece might sound like pure marketing, but I could see how it might be useful as a less technical guide for other CTOs thinking about rolling out AI.

Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant helped build small parts of the first issue of Signal, but it’s unclear how deep that’ll go in story creation in future issues. “We certainly didn’t go in intentionally and say that we’re going to have an AI-generated story,” says Clayton. “At the back of the magazine there’s a small quiz that’s generated by Copilot, so you could argue that piece is generated by AI.”

Clayton also says he used the deep research functionality of Copilot to help develop Microsoft’s periodic table. “I definitely see us using AI to help us do some of the research and production, and I think we’re open to what we can do with AI in the magazine, but it’s not something that’s front and center,” he says.

Microsoft has been working with the Slow Journalism Company in the UK to help produce Signal. “I’ve long been a fan of their work and they were a big help in writing some of the pieces as well, and we’ll continue to work with them,” says Clayton. “They have great writing and editorial talent, and also they just know how to produce a magazine.”

Learning how to create a magazine has been a big part of Microsoft’s experiment with Signal. A magazine has to have lighter pieces of content, and it all needs to be arranged in a compelling way to keep readers engaged. There’s a fine art to keep people turning a page in a magazine that’s different from getting someone to click on an online piece.

I’ve enjoyed reading Signal, especially the soccer piece and the 50-year anniversary stories. Like any magazine there are parts I could happily skip over, but the design, attention to detail, and stories here are surprising for Microsoft’s first issue. I’m very curious to see whether a trend back to print emerges across other tech companies, and how many hands Signal actually ends up in.

I’m always keen to hear from readers, so please drop a comment here, or you can reach me at notepad@theverge.com if you want to discuss anything else. If you’ve heard about any of Microsoft’s secret projects, you can reach me via email at notepad@theverge.com or speak to me confidentially on the Signal messaging app, where I’m tomwarren.01. I’m also tomwarren on Telegram, if you’d prefer to chat there.

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