Microsoft offers 60,000 employees a voluntary exit, without ever mentioning AI

On Monday, October 26, tens of thousands of Microsoft employees were due to receive an email with a link to an unprecedented offer: leave the company voluntarily, with financial support. About 60,000 employees are eligible, the company told AFP. Against the 223,000 employees the group had at the end of June according to its regulatory filings, that is roughly 27% of the workforce.

The offer covers certain teams in the United States, Canada, India and the United Kingdom, from vice president level down. France is not included. Not all teams are affected: some organizations are offering it, others are not, Microsoft writes. According to AFP, some employees in data centers, sales and marketing are excluded.

What the letter to employees says

In her message, Amy Coleman, executive vice president in charge of human resources, presents the offer as "a new choice" for those considering a future outside the company, and as a way for participating teams to adapt their staffing to changing needs. She acknowledges that the program is new to Microsoft, which will learn from it. The amount of the payouts has not been made public: the company mentions financial support and resources to prepare for the next stage of a career. Yet one word is missing from this letter: artificial intelligence.

Why everyone is thinking about AI

The context, however, is explicit. Microsoft is looking to cut costs while investing massively in AI, AFP notes. And some data center teams, those buildings full of servers that run AI models, are kept out of the program. This is not a first attempt: in April, Microsoft offered early retirement to about 7% of its US employees, and about 30% of those eligible accepted, according to CNBC cited by AFP.

Eligible does not mean leaving

The figure of 60,000 describes employees who are being offered the chance to leave, not departures. Microsoft has not said how much the plan will cost, nor put a number on expected acceptances: it only expects far fewer takers than in April, according to AFP. Elsewhere, other companies are more open about the link to AI, such as the bank Barclays, which plans to cut about 5,000 jobs by the end of 2026, citing AI-related efficiency gains among other reasons. Microsoft has chosen a different path: let employees decide, and say nothing about AI.

The company is due to publish its quarterly results this week: perhaps a chance to learn more about the cost of the operation. The real verdict will come from the number of employees who take the leap.