AI Is Coming for Big Tech Jobs—but Not in the Way You Think

Aaron Damigos’ inbox was deed with a dreaded, ubiquitous business-update calendar invitation connected June 3. The gathering included idiosyncratic from HR, his manager, and precocious management—and yet resulted successful the abrupt extremity to his occupation arsenic a web enactment subordinate with Microsoft.

Microsoft reportedly laid disconnected immoderate 1,000 radical successful aboriginal June, pulling from its mixed reality and Azure cloud departments, and besides Damigos’ user income division. An email to employees from Jason Zander, enforcement vice president of strategical missions and technologies astatine Microsoft, leaked to Business Insider, blamed a pivot to put successful artificial intelligence: “Our wide absorption arsenic a institution is to specify the AI question and empower each our customers to win successful the adoption of this transformative technology. Along the way, we marque decisions that align with our semipermanent imaginativeness and strategy portion ensuring the sustainability and maturation of Microsoft.”

Damigos, who lives successful Tacoma, Washington, says helium wasn’t told that a propulsion for AI straight led to the extremity of his occupation specifically, which progressive helping customers recognize however to usage Microsoft products. But it’s wide that Microsoft, the largest backer of OpenAI, is each successful connected the tech. “I deliberation the displacement toward AI enactment has unluckily led to the deprioritization of immoderate indispensable customer-facing roles,” says Damigos, who has been chronicling his layoff travel and showcasing his skills connected TikTok. “I helped radical recognize however to efficaciously usage and recognize the products.” He adds that helium felt his squad had “a batch of potential” to marque a amended lawsuit acquisition for Microsoft—but ultimately, the institution moved to marque investments elsewhere.

Microsoft did not corroborate the authenticity of Zander’s emails. “Organizational and workforce adjustments are a indispensable and regular portion of managing our business,” says Craig Cincotta, a Microsoft spokesperson. “We volition proceed to prioritize and put successful strategical maturation areas for our aboriginal and successful enactment of our customers and partners.”

No 1 knows yet rather how AI volition interaction work successful the agelong term, but galore experts mostly hold that AI volition not regenerate astir workers anytime soon. “AI volition reshape the labour market,” says Nick Bunker, manager of economical probe astatine the occupation committee Indeed. “It’s conscionable not wide however it volition reshape it.” Some foretell that it volition create much jobs—but immoderate workers are presently training their ain AI replacements. But the layoffs happening present amusement that AI hype, not futuristic AI colleagues, tin origin thousands of radical to suffer their jobs.

Microsoft isn’t alone. Dropbox announced 500 layoffs successful April 2023, and CEO Drew Houston acknowledged that AI had played a role. “In an perfect world, we’d simply displacement radical from 1 squad to another. And we’ve done that wherever possible,” Houston’s statement said. “However, our adjacent signifier of maturation requires a antithetic premix of accomplishment sets, peculiarly successful AI and early-stage merchandise development.” Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg made akin statements astir cutting jobs to put successful AI earlier this year, saying successful a post successful February: “A large extremity volition beryllium gathering the astir fashionable and astir precocious AI products and services,” arsenic Meta near its “year of efficiency,” which resulted successful downsizing the company. Google, too, has funneled wealth into its Anthropic AI developments, and its CEO, Sindar Pichai, warned of continuous cuts passim 2024, which began successful January. That comes contempt Google reporting beardown growth. “We’re responsibly investing successful our company's biggest priorities and the important opportunities ahead,” says Bailey Tomson, a Google spokesperson. In 2023 and 2024, respective Google teams “made changes to go much businesslike and enactment better,” Tomson says. “Through this, we’re simplifying our structures to springiness employees much accidental to enactment connected our astir innovative and important advances and our biggest institution priorities, portion reducing bureaucracy and layers.”