{"id":14420,"date":"2026-04-23T18:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/14420\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T18:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:04:09","slug":"microsoft-offers-voluntary-employee-buyouts-for-first-time-as-it-ramps-up-ai-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/14420\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft offers voluntary employee buyouts for first time as it ramps up AI spending"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft\u00a0is planning its first voluntary employee buyout in the Windows maker\u2019s 51-year history, CNBC reported<\/a> Thursday, citing a memo.<\/p>\n

Like other US tech giants,\u00a0Microsoft\u00a0has been spending aggressively on artificial intelligence<\/a>. But adoption of one of its flagship AI services, the 365 Copilot<\/a>, has reached just slightly over 3% of its total 450 million 365 customers.<\/p>\n

The one-time retirement program will be open to US workers at the senior director level and below,\u00a0with a combined age and years of employment of\u00a070 or more, CNBC reported.<\/p>\n

\"MicrosoftMicrosoft is offering voluntary buyouts for the first time. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hope is that this program gives those eligible the choice to take that next step on their own terms, with generous company support,\u201d Amy Coleman,\u00a0Microsoft\u2019s executive vice president and chief people officer, wrote in the memo viewed by CNBC.<\/p>\n

The company is changing how it distributes stock to employees for annual rewards and managers will no longer be required to tie stock directly to cash bonuses, CNBC said.\u00a0Microsoft\u00a0is also simplifying the manager review process, reducing pay options from nine to five.<\/p>\n

Microsoft\u00a0declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.<\/p>\n

Slowing cloud unit growth and investor concern over its heavy reliance on OpenAI<\/a> have made\u00a0Microsoft\u00a0one of the worst-performing Big Tech stocks this year, with its shares tumbling nearly 24% from January to March \u2013 the biggest quarterly drop since 2008.<\/p>\n

\"MicrosoftMicrosoft is changing how it distributes stock to employees for annual rewards, and managers will no longer be required to tie stock directly to cash bonuses. CEO Satya Nadella, above. Getty Images<\/p>\n

The company in March\u00a0unified the commercial and consumer versions of Copilot\u00a0in a restructuring that now has Mustafa Suleyman<\/a>, an industry veteran and\u00a0Microsoft\u2019s AI chief, focusing solely on building new AI models \u2013 an area where analysts say the software giant has lagged its rivals.<\/p>\n

The move is part of a series of wider changes at the company, including CEO Satya Nadella in October handing\u00a0oversight of some marketing and operations\u00a0to Judson Althoff, CEO of\u00a0Microsoft\u2019s commercial business, to sharpen his focus on the AI efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft\u00a0is planning its first voluntary employee buyout in the Windows maker\u2019s 51-year history, CNBC reported Thursday, citing a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[25,420,7829,309,320,7828,157,2806,781,7318],"class_list":{"0":"post-14420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-microsoft","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-azure","10":"tag-azure-ai","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-microsoft","13":"tag-microsoft-ai","14":"tag-openai","15":"tag-satya-nadella","16":"tag-tech","17":"tag-workers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}