The "Cost Reduction and Efficiency Enhancement Wave" of the AI era is coming! Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US) layoffs 15,000 people and hands over customer service and programming tasks to AI.

Media reported, citing informed sources, that Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US), a leader in AI application software, has recently accelerated its pace to show employees how the widespread use of artificial intelligence applications is changing their internal work processes, and how it is significantly increasing the progress of software engineering projects and business operational efficiency. At the same time, the company's second round of large-scale layoffs has already begun, and Microsoft Corporation has initiated two rounds of large-scale layoffs this year, with an estimated total reduction of up to 15,000 employees. Microsoft Corporation started its second round of large-scale layoffs for 2025 last week, with an expected cut of approximately 9,000 jobs, accounting for about 5% of its global workforce. In the view of some Wall Street analysts, the consecutive two rounds of large-scale layoffs initiated by the global leader in cloud computing and AI applications, along with the increased deployment of internal AI tools to improve efficiency, indicates that the "cost reduction and efficiency enhancement super wave" of the AI era may have arrived. According to sources, during a demonstration this week, Microsoft Corporation's Chief Business Officer Judson Althoff stated that AI application tools based on cutting-edge AI models are significantly improving productivity and operational efficiency across various aspects of the company's core business, from product sales and customer service to the implementation of large software engineering projects. With the popularity of ChatGPT and the launch of Sora's video big models, coupled with NVIDIA Corporation's unparalleled performance in the AI field, it signifies that human society is entering the AI era. At the end of May, Huang Renxun optimistically predicted at NVIDIA Corporation's earnings conference that the Blackwell series would set a record for the strongest AI chip sales in history, driving the artificial intelligence computing power infrastructure market to "experience exponential growth." Some institutions predict that starting from 2025, AI application software will enter an unprecedented era of "demand prosperity," which also means that a significant amount of human labor will be replaced. Microsoft Corporation is trading AI for manpower: Copilot boosts efficiency, employees say goodbye Sources stated that Althoff himself mentioned internally that in call centers alone, internal AI applications such as Copilot have saved Microsoft Corporation over $500 million in costs and improved employee efficiency and customer satisfaction. The sources requested anonymity because they were discussing internal affairs. Microsoft Corporation declined to comment on all media outlets. Althoff mentioned that Microsoft Corporation has also started using AI tools to handle interactions with smaller business scale customers. While this is still in its early stages, it has already brought optimistic profits of tens of millions of dollars. Top executives in Silicon Valley's tech industry are becoming increasingly proactive and outspoken about the tremendous potential for AI to automate human labor. Cloud software giant Salesforce, Inc., focused on customer relationship management software (CRM), stated that 30% of its internal maintenance and operations work is completed by AI tools, significantly reducing the need for recruitment in certain positions. Executives from Alphabet Inc. Class C's parent company Alphabet Inc., and Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms Inc., have indicated that a large amount of computer code is now being written efficiently by artificial intelligence, and AI has already started participating in the entire operation phase of large software engineering projects, from brainstorming to formal implementation. Althoff stated that at Microsoft Corporation, AI programming applications have generated up to 35% of the programming work for new products, significantly speeding up product launch times. Microsoft Corporation executives stated at the performance conference that their GitHub Copilot AI application is one of the leaders in the AI coding tool market, with approximately 15 million users (data as of April). Even the leader in generative AI, OpenAI, is increasing its investment in AI programming. Prior to OpenAI's acquisition of the AI programming startup Windsurf for approximately $3 billion in May, Windsurf was at the forefront of the AI programming field, especially in providing a "proxy-style" AI programming experience. After being acquired by OpenAI, OpenAI is expected to firmly occupy a dominant market share position in the AI programming field and lead the global development of AI programming. In the AI era, human employees face job replacement crisis AI application software undoubtedly serves as a core carrier for the revolutionary AI big models penetrating human life, capable of significantly improving enterprise operational efficiency and individual work and learning efficiency. The generative AI application leader Anthropic, known as the "rival of OpenAI," predicts that by 2027, AI big models will have the ability to automate almost all white-collar work, leading to a significant demand for AI computation brought by reasoning, which is expected to drive the AI computing power infrastructure market to continue experiencing exponential growth. "AI reasoning systems" are also believed to be the largest source of future revenue for NVIDIA Corporation, according to Huang Renxun. Based on current technological trajectories, the development direction of AI application software focuses on "generative AI application software" (such as DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Sora, and Anthropic's Claude, which are popular AI applications globally), as well as the shift from chatbox-style AI functions based on generative AI to "autonomous execution of various mundane and complex tasks by AI agents." Among them, AI agents are highly likely to be the 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. Companies are urgently advancing the widespread application of two core categories of AI application softwaregenerative AI applications and AI agentsto improve business efficiency and significantly reduce operational costs. In particular, AI agents such as OpenAI Deep Research and Manus can automate repetitive tasks, and with incredibly powerful AI big models, they can handle large-scale data analysis and summarization, provide real-time monitoring insights and make appropriate decisions in extremely complex situations in a very short period, thereby increasing enterprise operational efficiency. The same logic applies to personal learning and work efficiency. AI agents can also efficiently participate in all stages of large projects worldwide, from blueprint planning to implementation, significantly speeding up project progress. Therefore, the widespread infiltration of artificial intelligence has indeed intensified the replacement anxiety of many employees, especially in the tech industry. Microsoft Corporation has announced layoffs of around 15,000 people this year, with the recent round of layoffs focusing on customer-facing sales roles such as product sales. Althoff emphasized to Microsoft Corporation employees that AI can make them more efficient in sales roles. With Microsoft Corporation's series of customized Copilot AI assistants, each salesperson can discover more potential customers, complete transactions faster, and most importantly, generate an additional 9% in sales. However, Microsoft Corporation's Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith, at an event announcing a donation of over $4 billion in cash and technology to American school systems to promote AI-related skills, stated that the significant increase in productivity and operational efficiency brought by AI is "not the primary factor influencing the recent round of layoffs." Some analysts believe that the efficiency improvement brought by AI is undoubtedly an important influencing factor, but the continued massive investment by Microsoft Corporation in the AI infrastructure field may be a more significant factorthe company has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in data center expansion and AI application development.