My impression is that Microsoft does have internal divisions that fight each other for supremacy and at the moment the cloud is in the ascendancy. I think the vision within the cloud section is that they are trying to reduce the need for configuration experts. I would suggest this however will take a significant time to achieve.

That said I think there is a rise in Dev Opps and most of the members here are ideal candidates for such a role. So while in the long term the role of the DBA as it is today will alter probably getting less involved the need for intelligent mathematical individuals to connect with and use databases is only going to increase.

This is a change that is going to touch all professions not just DBAs.