Why Microsoft is asking 60,000 people whether they want to leave

Article written on 26 October 2026. The situation is moving: Microsoft reports its quarterly results on 28 October and some figures may change.

Imagine a large building, with a hundred families living and working in it.

One day, the owner decides to build, right next door, a huge factory full of very expensive machines. Machines that calculate, that talk, that write.

To pay for those machines, savings have to be found elsewhere. So the owner slips a letter under 27 doors out of 100: "If you wish to leave, we will help you. Nobody is obliged. You have until December to answer."

The machines are neither kind nor cruel. They can help everyone work better. They can also cost so much that the residents become the adjustment variable.

It is not a disaster: nobody is thrown out. But it is a very serious question put to a great many people at the same time. As if, across a whole city, one resident in four received the same letter on the same day.

That is exactly what has just happened at Microsoft. On 26 October 2026, the company offered a voluntary exit to about 60,000 employees, just over a quarter of its workforce, while it spends tens of billions of dollars on data centres and chips for artificial intelligence.

You may not work for Microsoft. But your employer is watching what the giants of the sector do.

The good news: a voluntary exit is better than a redundancy, and Microsoft states explicitly that the roles it has cut are not being replaced by AI. What remains to be seen is who benefits from the money invested in machines, and who pays the price.

So, a simple question: in your building, if that letter arrived under your door, what would you do?

For those who want to understand in detail, here is what happened.

What happened, simply

The offer of 26 October. Microsoft announced a "Voluntary Exit Offer", a proposal that each employee is free to accept or decline. According to GeekWire and AFP, it covers about 60,000 people in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and India, in the teams that chose to take part. It reaches up to the level of some vice presidents, with no age or tenure condition. Sales, part of the data centre teams and some engineering groups are not included. Employees have until the first week of December to answer.

What those who leave receive. Terms comparable to standard severance: a sum based on tenure and level, healthcare coverage for a limited period and career transition support. Nothing more generous than usual.

Not the first time. In April, Microsoft offered early retirement to about 8,750 US employees whose age plus years of service reached 70. About 30% accepted, at a cost of about 900 million dollars. In early July, the company then cut about 4,800 roles, just over 2% of its workforce, after more than 15,000 redundancies in 2025. This time, Microsoft says it expects far fewer acceptances than in April, without giving a figure.

Meanwhile, the machines. According to its annual report, Microsoft had about 223,000 employees on 30 June 2026, down from 228,000 a year earlier: the first fall in headcount in ten years, according to several media outlets. In the April to June quarter alone, the company invested about 41 billion dollars, largely in data centres (the buildings full of computers that run AI) and in the chips that equip them. For the whole of 2026, it expects about 175 billion dollars of investment.

What Microsoft does not say. The company states that this offer does not mean it needs fewer employees, and that it does not rule out redundancies later. In July, its chief people officer, Amy Coleman, wrote that "the roles eliminated today are not being replaced by AI", while recognising that AI is changing how work gets done. Both statements can be true at once: AI does not directly replace a person, but the money it costs shrinks the room left for people. No public figure today makes it possible to say how many of those roles disappeared because of AI.

Artificial intelligence and ethics: when the machine costs more than the people

A voluntary exit is, on paper, the most respectful way to reduce a workforce: the person chooses. But a freedom exercised under pressure is not quite freedom. When one employee in four receives the letter, everyone wonders what will happen to those who stay.

Three questions worth asking:

• Is the choice really free? Leave now with a payout, or stay knowing that redundancies remain possible: that is not a choice between two good options. It is a bet on the future, made with less information than the company has.
• Who benefits from the abundance? Billions invested in machines, record revenues and fewer employees: the wealth created by artificial intelligence goes first to shareholders and customers. Do the employees who built the company see a share of it?
• What happens to the knowledge of those who leave? Voluntary exits often attract the most experienced, those who know the customers and the mistakes of the past. A company can gain margin and lose memory.

This movement goes beyond Microsoft. As we saw with delivery robots, automation is decided company by company, and the question is never only technical: it is first of all human.

Hope: leaving with support, staying with training

There is good news in this story too. Microsoft says it has redeployed more than 4,000 employees into new roles in a year, rather than making them redundant. And a voluntary exit, done well, gives everyone time to prepare what comes next, which a redundancy never allows. The real challenge is not to stop companies investing in AI. It is to decide, before investing, what becomes of the people.

Are we really going to build a tower of Babel?

When I launched allelu.ai, I wrote that the real question is not whether we should use artificial intelligence, but what we want to put it in service of. Microsoft's 60,000 letters ask that question at the scale of a city.

The tower of Babel would be a company that stacks up data centres and billions, ever higher, and counts its employees as a cost to cut in order to fund the climb. A magnificent tower, with fewer and fewer people left to live in it.

The city would be the same artificial intelligence, the same investments, put at the service of people: employees trained to steer these tools, knowledge passed on rather than lost, wealth shared with those who built it, and particular care for the most vulnerable, those who have neither the age nor the qualifications to bounce back easily.

For now, nothing is settled. Microsoft chose voluntary exits over outright redundancies, and that is better. But the direction the money is taking is clear: towards the machines. What will tip the balance one way or the other is what every company, large or small, decides for its own teams. AI is a revolution. Humanity remains our responsibility.

And you?

If your company offered you a payout to leave tomorrow, would you accept? And if you lead a team, what comes first in your budget: the machines or the people?

If you found this article useful, subscribe to the allelu.ai newsletter: every Thursday evening, one piece of AI news explained simply, from an ethical angle. And forward this article to someone who should read it.

This abundance of machines and billions, which risks leaving people by the wayside, is at the heart of my book L'abondance tuera (in French).

Reynald Naulleau is the author of L'abondance tuera and the founder of Allelu AI (allelu.ai), a place to understand artificial intelligence and ethics, without jargon.

Sources

• El Mundo (with AFP), "Microsoft propone salidas voluntarias a 60.000 empleados, el 27% de la plantilla", 26 October 2026 (in Spanish): read the article
• GeekWire, "Microsoft makes new 'voluntary exit' offer to about a quarter of its workforce, including some execs", 26 October 2026: read the article
• BNN Bloomberg, "Microsoft offers voluntary exit packages to 60,000 staff", 26 October 2026: read the article
• Microsoft, official blog, "The latest in our company transformation", memo by Amy Coleman, 6 July 2026: read the memo
• GeekWire, "Microsoft puts a price on its voluntary retirement program", April 2026: read the article
• TweakTown, on headcount in Microsoft's 2026 annual report: read the article
• Investing.com, April to June 2026 quarterly results and capital spending: read the article

Written with the help of AI, reviewed and approved by Reynald Naulleau.