Business & Finance

Microsoft Offers Largest Buyout Amid Employee Letter Criticizing AI Push

By TOI Tech Desk

A group of current and former Microsoft employees has circulated an open letter accusing the company of prioritising artificial intelligence at the expense of its staff, customers and climate commitments. The letter, signed “Concerned Microsoft Workers,” emerged after Microsoft announced voluntary exit offers for about 60,000 employees, more than a quarter of its workforce, the largest such offer in the company’s history. The signatories claim that for many staff, “working at Microsoft has become joyless and demoralizing,” linking low morale to the period when the company increased its AI investments. They point to heavy workloads, frequent reorganisations and the threat of being replaced by AI. The letter, which began circulating among colleagues before the October 26 buyout announcement, asks Microsoft to involve employees in decisions about how AI is built and used, and to stop tying AI use to rewards or reprimands.

Workers describe mandatory AI tools as worsening their work, noting that they are pushed to use AI in almost every part of their jobs with little or no training and no clear rationale beyond speed. The result, they say, is a costly cycle of learning new tools, cleaning up poor AI output and rolling back weak features. The complaints extend beyond the office. Signatories claim that Microsoft’s own research shows AI agents do not prioritise user safety, and that internal planning documents describe ways to get people hooked on AI products. They also object to secretive data‑centre projects, contracts with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Israeli military, and what they call circular investments among a handful of AI firms.

Their demands fall under three headings: no AI without worker input and protections, no AI without community protections, and no trading away environmental promises for AI. On the last point, they want Microsoft to recommit to being carbon negative, water positive and zero waste by 2030.

The group is open to full‑time staff, employees of subsidiaries such as GitHub and LinkedIn, vendors, interns and contractors. The voluntary exit offer applies to eligible employees at level 70 and below in participating teams across India, the US, the UK and Canada; sales and some engineering teams were excluded. Those who accept receive at least eight weeks of base pay, with the amount rising by level and tenure. Employees have until December 9 to decide and would leave on December 31. Chief people officer Amy Coleman described the offer as “a new choice to make that transition now with support.” Microsoft expects fewer than 5 % of eligible employees to sign up.

This is Microsoft’s second buyout of 2026. In April, about 8,600 long‑serving US employees were offered early retirement, and roughly 30 % accepted. In July, the company cut about 4,800 jobs, including a fifth of its Xbox workforce. That followed 10,000 layoffs in 2023 and more than 15,000 in 2025. Headcount stood at 223,000 in June, down 5,000 from a year earlier.

Two days after the buyouts were announced, Microsoft reported a quarterly profit of $36.6 billion, up 32 %, on revenue of $92.3 billion. Capital spending, mainly on data centres, rose 30 % to $45.2 billion, and the company expects to spend about $170 billion this calendar year. Employees told the New York Times that merit raises this year were unusually small, in some cases under 1 %. At a town hall last month, a question on how leadership balanced over $100 billion a year in AI spending against flat rewards drew more than 80 reactions, about double what most questions received. Gretchen Thomas, a 57‑year‑old design leader who left in September after five years, told the publication that her stock award was cut partly for not consistently showing speed and a willingness to experiment, including with AI. “I just can’t believe how grim it’s gotten just in the last three years,” she said. Coleman has said the buyouts are not linked to how AI is changing work, the report noted, and she did not rule out future layoffs. For those who stay, the bigger worry is the work left behind. Several employees said they do not expect departing colleagues to be replaced, which leaves more on their plates as the AI push carries on.