Overview

• Microsoft will announce cuts to thousands of roles, primarily in its 45,000-strong sales division, in early July after its fiscal year-end.
• This move follows May’s reduction of 6,000 positions, which mostly affected product and engineering teams.
• In April, Microsoft told staff it would rely on third-party firms for more small and mid-market software sales, signaling a shift in its go-to-market strategy.
• Executives have pledged to contain costs outside of AI while directing roughly $80 billion in capital expenditure to expand data centers for AI workloads.
• Peers such as Amazon and Alphabet have announced their own headcount reductions as AI-driven automation reshapes job functions across the tech industry.