Even employees working on Copilot are affected.Monday, October 26, 2026, Microsoft announced a voluntary departure program open to around 60,000 people, representing 27% of its global workforce (more than a quarter!). According to a source close to the matter cited by Reuters, several areas are concerned: artificial intelligence, Copilot, finance, human resources, Xbox, as well as Windows and devices.

This does not involve 60,000 announced layoffs: the figure corresponds to employees who may be eligible for the offer. Microsoft did not specify how many departures it was seeking. The program covers certain teams in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and India. Marketing, sales and security services are notably excluded.

“This offer enables eligible employees who are considering a future outside the company to make that transition now with support,” explains Amy Coleman, the chief human resources officer, in her note to employees. She also sees it as a way to “adapt their workforce to evolving needs.”

The announcement comes on top of several rounds of workforce reductions at Microsoft. It comes especially at a time when the company is spending huge sums on AI, from which it also expects productivity gains. All of which fuels fears of a “job apocalypse.”

Microsoft offered voluntary departures to 60,000 employees. // Source: Numerama montage

Repeated departures and a soaring AI bill

Earlier in the year, Microsoft had already offered voluntary retirement to around 9,000 employees, representing 7% of its US workforce. In July, the company had also announced the elimination of 4,800 jobs worldwide, following more than 15,000 in 2025. The latest round particularly affected Xbox, which is undergoing restructuring and divesting studios to improve the profitability of its business.

Amy Coleman had then assured that the eliminated positions were “not being replaced by AI,” while acknowledging that certain daily tasks could now be automated. An important clarification: Microsoft did not present these layoffs as the direct result of employees being replaced by its tools.

The cost of AI nevertheless plays a role in the company’s decisions. According to Reuters, the new program is intended to help control spending and finance its massive investments in this technology.

And with good reason: Microsoft plans $175 billion in investments for calendar year 2026, particularly in data centers and chips. Such amounts are raising concerns among investors about their future profitability. The quarterly results, expected Wednesday, October 28, after the close of US markets, will provide an opportunity to learn more about this bill.

Microsoft. // Source: Pixabay

Infrastructure, moreover, is not the only area of spending to monitor.We reported it in May: according to The Verge, Microsoft had begun restricting access to Claude Code in some teams, notably for budgetary reasons. Some uses of AI agents would even cost more than human labor.

For employees, the risk thus goes beyond being replaced by software. Their employer may also seek to reduce its payroll to fund its technology spending.

More Than 120,000 Job Cuts Announced by Citing AI

Microsoft is far from an isolated case. Between January and September 2026, American employers cited artificial intelligence to justify 120,136 announced job cuts, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. This represents approximately 21% of the recorded total. AI even ranks first among the reasons cited since the beginning of the year.

This figure is based on companies’ statements. It does not mean that 120,000 people have been replaced by machines, nor that all of these departures have already occurred. It does, however, demonstrate the role AI has come to play in workforce reduction plans.

Some executives are very directly advocating the possibility of operating with fewer employees. In February 2026, Block, the company behind the Square and Cash App payment services, announced the elimination of more than 4,000 jobs, or over 40% of its workforce. Jack Dorsey told shareholders that a much smaller team could now accomplish more thanks to AI tools. Yet the company was reporting a 24% increase in quarterly gross profit.

In April, Snap announced approximately 1,000 job cuts, representing 16% of its full-time workforce, as well as the cancellation of more than 300 hires. Evan Spiegel was also highlighting advances in AI and the results achieved by small teams equipped with these tools. At the same time, the company was targeting more than $500 million in annual savings to move closer to profitability.

Microsoft shows its ambitions. // Source: Numerama montage

Amazon had prepared its employees for this possibility as early as June 2025. Andy Jassy explained that generative AI and agents would reduce staffing needs for certain tasks while creating new ones elsewhere. Nevertheless, he expected an overall decline in the office workforce in the coming years.

It remains difficult to determine what proportion of departures actually result from automated work. At Amazon, Jeff Bezos was still invoking excessive hiring during the pandemic in October to explain workforce reductions. Cost savings, reorganizations, and the adoption of AI can be combined within the same workforce reduction plan.

Young people are also seeing hiring cutbacks

Are these announcements enough to speak of a “job apocalypse”? The available data do not yet show a widespread destruction of jobs by AI. But some workers are already facing greater difficulties.

In a study updated in August 2026, researchers from Stanford analyzed payroll data from millions of American workers.They observe a decline among 22- to 25-year-olds in occupations most exposed to AI compared with those working in less-exposed professions. This gap seems to stem mainly from a decline in hiring rather than an increase in departures.

September figures published by ADP Research point in the same direction: for this age group, employment fell by 3.7% year over year in occupations highly exposed to AI, compared with a slight increase of 0.2% in less-exposed occupations. This comparison does not make it possible to attribute each missing job to artificial intelligence, but it shows where the difficulties are concentrated.

At Microsoft, more than one employee in four is now eligible for a departure offer, while planned investments for 2026 reach $175 billion. Andy Challenger, one of the company’s executives, summarized this trend as early as May: “Whether or not jobs are replaced by AI, the money that funds them is. ”

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