Microsoft Reportedly Offers Buyouts to 60,000 Employees Amid AI Shift

Microsoft has reportedly offered buyouts to 60,000 employees, according to reports, in an effort to reduce costs amid the rising use of artificial intelligence.

What Microsoft Announced

The tech company said it would offer buyouts to 60,000 employees in an effort to reduce costs amid the rising use of AI, according to reports. The move is the latest example of how AI is reshaping tech companies and the greater workforce, the source said.

Microsoft announced in April that it was offering voluntary retirement to about 7% of its US workforce, which consisted of about 125,000 employees at the time. Its global workforce is made up of about 223,000 workers globally.

Reported Scope and Response

Bloomberg reported on Monday that some of Microsoft’s most recognizable divisions, including Xbox, Windows and Copilot, its AI tool, will participate in the offer. Employees in certain divisions, including cybersecurity, datacenters and marketing, would not be eligible for the offer, it said.

Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s executive vice-president and chief people officer, said in a statement that the offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support. It also gives participating organizations another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs, the source reported. Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment on further details about the offer.

Wider Tech Context

Multiple tech companies have announced layoffs due to the rise of AI and increased investment in the technology this year. Meta announced plans in April to cut 10% of its personnel, or about 8,000 employees, to boost efficiency. Amazon has made several cuts to its workforce, most recently in its retail division. And in June, Oracle shed its workforce by nearly 13%, cutting 21,000 jobs, as a result of AI.

But it is unclear whether these workforce-reduction measures have translated yet into greater efficiency, and some companies, including Meta, have scaled back their layoff plans. A top Microsoft leader, Ryan Roslansky, recently complained about AI slop in the workforce on social media. The National Bureau of Economic Research recently published a working paper which found that among the 9,000 senior executives it surveyed from around the world, 90% said AI had yet to result in greater productivity at their companies.

What Is Confirmed and Unknown

The available source describes a reported buyout offer and places it in a year already marked by several workforce trimmings. It says Microsoft announced the offer according to reports, and it attributes details about participating divisions to Bloomberg. It notes that Microsoft did not comment on further details.

The source does not provide confirmed acceptance numbers, final eligibility rules, deadlines or application procedures. It also does not establish how the buyout offer may affect Microsoft’s workforce or whether it will produce the efficiency outcomes sought by other tech companies.

Practical Implications and Verification

The reported move could affect employees in participating and reportedly ineligible divisions, but the full practical impact is not yet clear from the supplied source. For the wider tech sector, the context is a set of AI-related cost-cutting announcements, alongside uncertainty about productivity gains.

Readers can check the original announcement through The Guardian report at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/26/microsoft-buyout-offers-ai-cuts. The source is limited, so this report avoids adding claims about acceptance, eligibility or internal strategy.