I can’t open LinkedIn with out seeing a brand new publish from a Microsoft worker who misplaced their job within the firm’s newest spherical of layoffs. Round 15,000 jobs have been eradicated at Microsoft over the previous couple months — the most important cuts on the firm in additional than a decade.
I’ve spoken to greater than a dozen Microsoft workers in latest weeks, and everybody is worried in regards to the firm’s path on this AI period. Morale is at an all-time low, and workers are nervous that common layoffs are merely the brand new regular.
Sources inform me that Microsoft’s management staff had the selection between decreasing funding in AI infrastructure for the upcoming monetary yr or deeply chopping its headcount and working bills. It’s very clear what route Microsoft selected.
These layoffs have been each broad and brutal. When you’ve seemingly learn the headlines in regards to the impression on Xbox video games studios, Microsoft’s different cuts go far deeper and are a part of an even bigger plan to restructure Microsoft round AI instruments.
Microsoft has laid off technical specialists, business strategy experts, and product managers. The gross sales aspect of Microsoft, which is accountable for companies adopting its newest know-how, has been hit notably arduous. Even AI and cloud sales groups have seen cuts, and account managers throughout a variety of Microsoft merchandise have misplaced their jobs, too.
Microsoft’s layoffs have additionally impacted roles internationally, the place an AI operations manager in Portugal proved inclined to Microsoft’s newest reductions. Some workers even discovered they’d misplaced their job while on vacation, and one was laid off twice in round six months.
This doesn’t imply MS is essentially decreasing headcount total, as workers like Patrick Lyons are being pressured to use for different roles. That would imply Microsoft’s headcount may really be related this yr to 2024.
Skilled veteran workers have been additionally reduce not too long ago. Former engineering supervisor HongQiao Li had spent nearly 21 years at Microsoft prototyping the early model of Copilot in Workplace, earlier than the most recent cuts. Trinh Tran, a senior companion know-how strategist, had dedicated 23 years to Microsoft whereas constructing options for the corporate’s cloud enterprise and championing accessibility. Enterprise technique skilled Darron Inman joined Microsoft in 1996 and is “disenchanted that I didn’t fairly make it to the 30-year mark.”
Microsoft’s gaming enterprise has been closely impacted by the most recent cull. Uncommon’s Everwild and The Initiative’s Good Darkish video games have been canceled, with The Initiative shutting down because of this. Blackbird, a brand new recreation from ZeniMax On-line Studios, impressed Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer earlier this yr, nevertheless it was canceled anyway. Blizzard can be sunsetting its Warcraft mobile game, simply months after Activision wound down its Name of Obligation: Warzone cell recreation.
Forza Motorsport developer Flip 10 Studios was additionally hit arduous by Microsoft’s cuts. One supply described the layoffs as leaving sufficient individuals behind to maintain the sport up and working. It appears like Flip 10 will merely be a assist studio for the Forza franchise, so I doubt we’ll see one other Motorsport entry from the staff.
Raven, Sledgehammer Video games, Uncommon, ZeniMax On-line Studios, Halo Studios, and King have all been impacted by the Xbox cuts. King, which is behind Sweet Crush, is making ready to chop as many as 200 workers, with the London-based Farm Heroes Saga staff already being reduce in half. Laid off King workers are reportedly being replaced by the AI tools they helped construct.
At Irish developer Romero Video games, 100 jobs are additionally in danger after Microsoft pulled funding for a undertaking they have been engaged on. Microsoft reportedly had a meeting with Romero the day earlier than the financing dried up, with none point out of the choice. Romero is now in search of one other publishing companion for its recreation to keep away from the studio’s closure.
Uncommon’s Gregg Mayles, a 35-year veteran, is leaving Microsoft following the Everwild cancellation, alongside Louise O’Connor, government producer of Everwild. ZeniMax president Matt Firor is departing after 18 years main the studio.
Microsoft has additionally reduce its Xbox consumer analysis staff in half. It’s a key staff that focuses on guaranteeing high quality throughout Xbox video games, the platform, and developer instruments. With out consumer analysis groups, Microsoft might have extra video games delivery in a poor state like Redfall. The Xbox cuts have impacted community managers, designers, and branding experts, too.
Whereas Microsoft didn’t “really feel the burn” by launching a fiery Xbox controller in parallel with gaming layoffs this yr, it nonetheless had some tone-deaf mishaps this time round.
Xbox government producer Matt Turnbull beneficial that laid off workers search recommendation from AI chatbots to “assist scale back the emotional and cognitive load that comes with job loss.” The ID@Xbox staff sent out an email blast about an AI roundtable at Gamescom as creatives rightfully fear about being changed by AI.
“Utilizing AI is now not non-compulsory” inside some components of Microsoft, as Julia Liuson, president of Microsoft’s developer division, proclaimed in an inside memo not too long ago. Microsoft is reportedly now asking some managers to judge workers primarily based on how a lot they use AI instruments. Judson Althoff, Microsoft’s chief industrial officer, even boasted — in the identical week that Microsoft slashed jobs — in regards to the firm saving more than $500 million final yr in simply its name facilities because of AI.
To high off the mishaps, principal developer lead Mike Matsel posted a sloppy, AI-generated “Xbox Graphics is hiring” picture on LinkedIn, with a monitor’s show on the incorrect aspect. Microsoft has been repeatedly posting AI slop to its company blogs for greater than a yr now, and not using a care on the earth about how unhealthy the pictures look, so it’s not shocking to see extra workers following alongside.
This AI slop is generated by the identical instruments that Microsoft is attempting to persuade companies to make use of. The corporate continues to be struggling to promote its $30 per consumer, monthly Copilot subscription, and the layoffs which have impacted Microsoft’s gross sales groups are a part of a broader restructuring effort to herald extra technical salespeople to higher show AI instruments to companies. To that finish, Microsoft is reportedly replacing conventional salespeople with “options engineers.”
Microsoft is competing with Google, Anthropic, Amazon, and even its AI companion OpenAI for a slice of the enterprise AI pie. When you combine that with AI infrastructure prices, you get the kind of fixed mass layoffs we’ve seen at Microsoft over the previous 18 months.
The ambiance inside Microsoft is now very completely different from only a decade in the past, when Microsoft was thought-about cool once more and Satya Nadella had simply been promoted to CEO and overhauled the corporate’s tradition to embrace a world past Home windows. That tradition change noticed Microsoft make some large acquisitions like LinkedIn and GitHub, and noticed it actually capitalize on the shift to cloud computing. Now, Microsoft dangers making a tradition of worry because it pushes employees to adapt to the guarantees of AI, the place shock “performance-related” job cuts can occur at any time, all as a result of it’s in an unsure AI race that’s costing tens of billions of {dollars}.
- Mercedes-Benz will allow you to use an in-car digital camera in Microsoft Groups whereas driving. You’ll quickly have the ability to be a part of a Microsoft Groups name in some Mercedes‑Benz autos and use the in-car digital camera to talk with colleagues when you’re driving. It’s a part of a brand new replace to the Groups app for the all-new CLA, making Mercedes‑Benz the primary automaker to allow in-car digital camera use for Microsoft Groups whereas a automotive is being pushed. Fortunately, when you can share a video stream of your self merrily driving alongside, you gained’t have the ability to see any shared screens or slides when you’re in movement. Microsoft and Mercedes‑Benz are additionally working collectively to combine Microsoft 365 Copilot into automobiles, which is described because the hellish situation of getting “the potential to rework the automobile into a 3rd workspace.”
- Microsoft’s Copilot Imaginative and prescient AI can now scan every part in your display. Microsoft is rolling out an replace to Copilot Imaginative and prescient for Home windows that lets the AI device see every part in your display. Copilot Imaginative and prescient requires you to share your display with it, in contrast to Recall, which mechanically takes snapshots. It’s much like sharing a display throughout a video name, supplying you with full management over the expertise. The early variations of Copilot Imaginative and prescient are fundamental, nevertheless it’s clear Microsoft is transferring towards a future the place an AI assistant will have the ability to information you thru utilizing apps or video games.
- Skype for Enterprise will get a couple of extra months of assist. Microsoft is giving Skype for Enterprise a couple of additional months of assist. Whereas the primary Skype shopper app closed down earlier this yr, Skype for Enterprise 2015 and 2019 are set to succeed in finish of assist in October. Now, companies will be able to purchase prolonged safety updates for Skype for Enterprise, however solely for an additional six months, bringing prolonged assist as much as April 14th, 2026.
- Xbox checks letting you stream your personal video games on PC. The “stream your personal recreation” function on Xbox consoles is arriving on PCs quickly. Xbox Insiders with a Sport Cross Final subscription can now check streaming Xbox video games they personal, together with console-only titles, by the Xbox PC app. Xbox at present allows you to stream greater than 250 video games out of your library, along with the titles discovered on Sport Cross.
- Copilot Plus PCs get a brand new describe picture function. Microsoft has began testing a brand new choice within the Click on to Do function that makes use of AI to generate a written description of a picture or chart. It’s arriving first on Qualcomm-powered Copilot Plus PCs, and makes use of native AI fashions.
- Microsoft will halt new Workplace options for Home windows 10 in 2026. Microsoft has quietly revealed that it’ll cease including new options to Workplace apps (Microsoft 365) for Home windows 10 customers as of August 2026. Whereas safety updates will stay in place for Workplace apps working on Home windows 10 till October 2028, Microsoft will step by step reduce off new function assist subsequent yr.
- Microsoft has a brand new trick to enhance laptop computer battery life on Home windows. Microsoft has began testing a brand new adaptive vitality saver mode that can mechanically allow or disable the primary vitality saver mode, primarily based in your laptop computer’s workload quite than simply its quantity of battery life left. It can solely be out there on units with batteries, and it’ll mechanically allow or disable with out affecting display brightness.
- Home windows 11’s new Black Display screen of Demise is now rolling out. Microsoft is altering its Blue Display screen of Demise (BSOD) to a newly designed black model. It’s the primary main change to the BSOD since Microsoft added a tragic face to the display in Home windows 8, and it’s now eradicating that frowning face and QR code in favor of a extra simplified black display. I personally assume this appears far too much like the black display you see throughout a Home windows replace, however after the blue display CrowdStrike incident, I can see why Microsoft needs to drop the colour blue.
- Microsoft scraps Home windows 11’s simplified taskbar system tray. Microsoft began testing a simplified information and time structure for the system tray and taskbar on Home windows 11 greater than a yr in the past, and it has now been scrapped. The structure adjustments meant the AM / PM indicators could be eliminated, together with the yr on the date. “The suggestions we obtained about that was not nice,” stated Brandon LeBlanc, from the Home windows Insider staff, on X.
- Google Cloud loses a high-profile AI buyer to Azure. Replit is transferring its coding platform to Microsoft Azure, ditching Google Cloud within the course of. The transfer will permit builders to construct on Replit after which deploy instantly to Microsoft Azure’s infrastructure and market — giving them direct entry to enterprise prospects. Google has featured Replit as a key buyer previously, so this one will sting for the third-place cloud supplier.
- Microsoft shareholders prod the corporate’s ties to the Israeli navy. Some Microsoft workers have been protesting the corporate’s contracts with the Israeli authorities in latest months, and now shareholders are putting the pressure on, too. A gaggle of traders is asking the corporate to evaluate the way it identifies prospects who misuse its AI instruments. A shareholder decision could possibly be voted on on the firm’s annual assembly in December. If profitable, it might ask the board to fee a public report on how Microsoft stops its AI and cloud instruments from being utilized in ways in which violate human rights or worldwide legal guidelines.
- The Home windows and Xbox handheld gaming UI is beginning to present up. As we get nearer to the launch of the Xbox Ally handheld units, components of how Home windows is adapting to this {hardware} can now be seen within the newest builds of the OS. Home windows watcher phantomofearth has discovered a brand new setup interface that implies it will likely be handheld-friendly. I anticipate that we’ll see much more of the Xbox and Home windows interface within the coming months, as Microsoft and Asus prepare for an October launch.
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