{"id":528096,"date":"2026-07-06T16:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/528096\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T16:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:00:10","slug":"microsoft-to-cut-4800-jobs-latest-ai-driven-tech-layoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/528096\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft to cut 4,800 jobs, latest AI-driven tech layoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft is cutting about 2.1% of its workforce, or roughly 4,800 jobs, the latest in a wave of tech layoffs as the Windows maker spends heavily on AI infrastructure and \u200buses the technology to improve efficiency across its business.<\/p>\n

\"NBC<\/p>\n

Limited time: Save 25% on NBC News subscription<\/p>\n

Get exclusive reporting, live Q&As and ad-free reading.<\/p>\n

\"arrow\"<\/p>\n

The cuts will primarily impact Microsoft\u2019s Xbox gaming division, according to an email sent to Xbox employees Monday that the company posted online<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter careful consideration, I\u2019ve made the difficult decision to reduce our team by approximately 3,200 throughout FY27,\u201d wrote Asha Sharma, the new head of Microsoft\u2019s gaming division. \u201cThis will include approximately 1,600 role eliminations today, and in addition, four studios will leave XBOX to new management.\u201d <\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s commercial division will also be impacted by the reductions, according to an email to staff from executive vice president and chief people officer Amy Coleman that was obtained by NBC News.<\/p>\n

Big Tech\u2019s historic AI outlays, set \u200cto top $700 billion this year, are piling pressure on companies to show returns from the technology and offset the rising cost of rolling it out across their businesses. Amazon and Meta Platforms have also laid off thousands \u200bof employees this year.<\/p>\n

Microsoft announced the cuts on Monday following a rough stretch, with its shares \u200bfalling nearly 23% in the first six months of 2026, their worst first-half \u2060performance since 2022.<\/p>\n

The software giant earlier this year offered voluntary buyouts to about 7% of \u200bits U.S. workforce, or about 9,000 employees. Microsoft often trims jobs near the end of its fiscal \u200byear in June as it sets spending plans for the new year.<\/p>\n

Booming AI demand has powered growth at Microsoft\u2019s Azure cloud-computing business, which was the exclusive seller of OpenAI\u2019s models until April, but the mounting cost of \u200bbuilding data centers to run those services is squeezing its cash flows.<\/p>\n

The company, expected to report \u200bresults later this month, had in April forecast quarterly Azure sales above Wall Street estimates, but also issued \u200ca $190 billion \u2060spending projection for 2026 that massively surpassed expectations.<\/p>\n

AI tools that can increasingly automate routine business tasks have also emerged as a threat to its lucrative software business, while a surge in memory chip prices driven by data center demand has forced Microsoft to raise Xbox console prices at \u200ba time when demand for \u200bthe console was \u2060already soft.<\/p>\n

Sharma said last month that the business needed a \u201creset\u201d and that its profit margin had declined to 3%, forcing \u200ba restructuring that could include potential mergers and acquisitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cExcluding Activision Blizzard King, over the \u200bpast five \u2060years, we have spent over $20 billion on ongoing investments in our content, platform and hardware subsidy, but our annual revenue has declined nearly half a billion during that time,\u201d she said in an outspoken \u2060memo \u200bto employees published on Microsoft\u2019s website. \u201cGoing forward, this cannot continue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft is cutting about 2.1% of its workforce, or roughly 4,800 jobs, the latest in a wave of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":["post-528096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}