Microsoft and Meta announce large staff reductions as they spend big on AI

The Guardian: Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft’s AI chief, said in February that he believes that AI will be able to replace most white-collar work within the next 12 to 18 months.

Satya Nadella, the Microsoft CEO, has trumpeted Microsoft’s internal AI adoption, which he says has led to major productivity gains. In April 2025, he claimed that AI handled as much as 30% of the company’s coding work.

My Opinion: Microsoft is offering early retirement to thousands of employees to reduce its workforce. That contrasts with other tech companies like Meta, which is planning on laying off thousands of employees. All this is necessary as spending on AI and data centers have increased by billions of dollars, and more coding is being done by AI tools.

According to Zuckerberg, projects that used to require big teams, can now be accomplished by one single talented person.