Microsoft has offered 60,000 employees, or about 27 per cent of its global workforce, voluntary buyouts as the software giant spends heavily on artificial intelligence.
The company's voluntary exit offer was available to eligible employees in Canada, India, the UK and the US, the company's Chief People Officer Amy Coleman wrote in a blog post Monday (Oct 26).
"The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us," Coleman wrote. "We'll learn from it. At the same time, we'll keep helping people focus on the work that matters most, build new skills and, where it makes sense, find new opportunities across Microsoft."
The company, which releases its quarterly financial results Wednesday, had approximately 223,000 full-time employees at the end of June.
Shares of Microsoft Corp, based in Redmond, Washington, hit an all-time high this month. The stock rose about one per cent on Monday.
In May, Microsoft planned to offer buyouts to about 8,750 people, or seven per cent of its US workforce, according to two people familiar with the plan who were not authorised to speak about it publicly.
In July, the company said it was cutting 4,800 jobs, about 2.1 per cent of its global workforce, including a large number of workers at its Xbox video game business.
The gusher of investment in data centres — likely topping US$700 billion (S$896 billion) this year — to power artificial intelligence has made memory chips, computer processors and other equipment, as well as electricity, more expensive. Economists expect it will continue to push up inflation at least through the end of this year.
Microsoft has been ramping up its AI capabilities for several years. In 2024 the company revealed a new class of AI-imbued personal computers that centred on fusing its AI assistant, called Copilot, into the Windows operating system for PCs, where Microsoft already has the eyes of millions of consumers.
And in October 2025 Microsoft introduced a new artificial intelligence character called Mico, a floating cartoon face shaped like a blob or flame that embodies the software giant's Copilot virtual assistant.
[[nid:749092]]
