The wave of "cost reduction and efficiency enhancement" in the AI era has arrived! Microsoft cuts 15,000 jobs, handing over everything from customer service to programming to AI

According to reports from media citing informed sources, AI application software leader Microsoft (MSFT.US) has recently accelerated its efforts to demonstrate to employees how the application of artificial intelligence is changing its internal work processes and significantly improving the progress of software engineering projects and overall business efficiency.

At the same time, the company's second round of large-scale layoffs has already begun during this period. This year, Microsoft has initiated two rounds of major layoffs, with a total expected reduction of up to 15,000 employees. Last week, Microsoft launched its second round of large-scale layoffs for 2025, expecting to cut about 9,000 jobs, which accounts for approximately 5% of its global workforce.

Some Wall Street analysts believe that the consecutive rounds of layoffs initiated by the global leader in cloud computing and AI applications, along with the increased focus on internal AI tools to enhance efficiency, indicate that the "super wave of cost reduction and efficiency enhancement" in the era of artificial intelligence may have already arrived.

According to informed sources, during a presentation this week, Microsoft's Chief Commercial Officer Judson Althoff stated that AI application tools based on advanced AI large models are significantly enhancing productivity and operational efficiency across various core business areas of the company, from product sales and customer service to the implementation of large software engineering projects.

With the global popularity of ChatGPT and the significant launch of the Sora text-to-video large model, coupled with the unparalleled performance of Nvidia, the "shovel sellers" in the AI field, it signifies that human society has entered the AI era. At Nvidia's earnings meeting at the end of May, Jensen Huang optimistically predicted that the Blackwell series would set the strongest sales record for AI chips in history, driving the artificial intelligence computing power infrastructure market to "exhibit exponential growth." Some institutions predict that starting in 2025, AI application software will enter an unprecedented "demand boom," which also means that a considerable portion of the human workforce will be replaced.

Microsoft Replaces Labor with AI: Copilot Enhances Efficiency, Employees Say Goodbye

Informed sources indicate that Althoff himself stated internally that Microsoft Copilot and other internal AI application tools saved Microsoft over $500 million in costs last year alone in call centers, while also improving employee efficiency and customer service satisfaction. The source requested anonymity due to the discussion of internal matters. Microsoft declined to comment to all media.

The source also mentioned that Althoff added that Microsoft has begun using AI tools to handle interactions with smaller business clients. This initiative is still in its early stages but has already brought optimistic returns of tens of millions of dollars.

Tech executives in Silicon Valley are increasingly proactive and outspoken about the enormous potential of AI to automate human labor. Salesforce Inc., a cloud software giant focused on customer relationship management (CRM), stated that 30% of its internal maintenance and operational work is completed by AI tools, significantly reducing its hiring needs for certain positions Executives from Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. and Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms Inc. have stated that a large amount of computer code is now being efficiently written by artificial intelligence, and AI has begun to participate in the entire operational phase of large software engineering projects, from brainstorming to formal implementation.

Altoff stated that at Microsoft, AI programming applications have generated up to 35% of the programming workload for new products, significantly accelerating time to market. Microsoft executives mentioned in an earnings meeting that its GitHub Copilot AI application product is one of the leaders in the AI coding tools market, with approximately 15 million users (data as of April).

Even OpenAI, a leader in the generative AI field, is ramping up its AI programming efforts. Previously, OpenAI acquired another leader in the AI coding tools market, the AI programming startup Windsurf, for about $3 billion in May. Windsurf currently leads in the AI programming field, especially in providing an "agent-based" AI programming experience. After being acquired by OpenAI, it is expected to firmly occupy a dominant market share in the AI programming field and lead the global development of AI programming, thanks to OpenAI's incredibly powerful generative AI ecosystem and deep integration with OpenAI's programming agent Codex CLI.

In the AI era, human employees face layoff crises

AI application software is undoubtedly a core carrier of the epoch-making penetration of large AI models into human life, capable of achieving breakthrough improvements in business operational efficiency as well as individual work and learning efficiency.

The generative AI application leader, known as "OpenAI's rival," Anthropic, predicts that by 2027, AI large models will be capable of automating almost all white-collar jobs. Therefore, the AI computing power demand brought by inference is considered "vast," likely driving the artificial intelligence computing power infrastructure market to continue showing exponential growth. The "AI inference system" is also seen by Jensen Huang as the largest source of future revenue for Nvidia.

From the current technological trajectory, the development direction of AI application software focuses on "generative AI application software" (such as DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Sora, and Claude launched by Anthropic, which are popular globally), and based on generative AI, AI functions are shifting from a chatbox-style question-and-answer format to "autonomously executing various tedious and complex tasks as AI agents." Among them, AI agents are likely to be a major trend in AI applications before 2030. The emergence of AI agents signifies that artificial intelligence is evolving from an information assistance tool to a highly intelligent productivity tool.

The urgent demand from enterprises to improve business efficiency and significantly reduce operational costs has recently greatly promoted the widespread application of two core categories of AI application software—generative AI applications and AI agents. Especially represented by OpenAI Deep Research and Manus, AI agents can automate repetitive tasks, perform big data analysis and summarization based on incredibly powerful AI large models, and provide real-time monitoring insights and make appropriate decisions in extremely complex situations in a very short time This enhances the operational efficiency of enterprises. The logic of increasing efficiency is fundamentally similar for individual learning and work efficiency. AI agents can also efficiently participate in large-scale projects across various fields globally, from blueprint planning to implementation, significantly accelerating project progress.

Therefore, the widespread penetration of artificial intelligence has indeed intensified the replacement anxiety of many employees, especially those in the technology industry. Microsoft has announced layoffs of approximately 15,000 employees this year, with last week's new round of layoffs focusing on customer-facing sales positions such as product sales.

Altoff emphasized to Microsoft employees that artificial intelligence can make them more efficient in their roles as salespeople. With Microsoft's series of customized Copilot AI assistants, each salesperson can discover more potential customers, complete transactions faster, and, more importantly, generate an additional 9% in sales.

However, Microsoft’s Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith stated on Wednesday during an important event announcing a donation of over $4 billion in cash and technology to the U.S. school system to promote AI-related skills that the significant increase in productivity and operational efficiency brought by artificial intelligence "is not the main factor influencing the recent round of layoffs." Some analysts believe that while the efficiency gains brought by AI are undoubtedly an important influencing factor, a relatively more significant factor may be Microsoft's continued massive investment in AI infrastructure— the company has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in data center expansion and AI application development