Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks during an lawsuit commemorating the 50th day of the institution astatine Microsoft office successful Redmond, Washington, connected April 4, 2025. Microsoft Corp., determined to clasp its crushed successful artificial intelligence, volition soon fto consumers tailor the Copilot integer adjunct to their ain needs.
David Ryder | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Microsoft volition grow its worker basal erstwhile again, CEO Satya Nadella told capitalist Brad Gerstner connected a podcast that aired connected Friday.
The bundle maker's workforce didn't budge successful the 2025 fiscal year, which ended successful June. It stood astatine 228,000, with aggregate rounds of layoffs lowering the full fig by at slightest 6,000. In July, Microsoft fto spell of another 9,000 workers.
"I volition accidental we volition turn our headcount, but the mode I look astatine it is, that headcount we turn volition turn with a batch much leverage than the headcount we had pre-AI," Nadella said connected the BG2 podcast. OpenAI, which has a broad partnership with Microsoft, introduced its ChatGPT adjunct successful 2022. Microsoft's headcount grew by 22% successful the 2022 fiscal year.
Employees volition fig retired however to bash their jobs differently, Nadella said, adding that the institution wants to guarantee they tin entree artificial quality features successful Microsoft 365 productivity bundle and the GitHub Copilot AI coding assistant. Those services gully connected AI models from Anthropic and OpenAI.
"It's the unlearning and learning process that I deliberation volition instrumentality the adjacent twelvemonth oregon so, past the headcount maturation volition travel with max leverage," helium said.
A akin accommodation played retired astatine corporations decades ago, Nadella said. To hole forecasts, inter-office memos would circulate crossed aggregate sites by fax, and past came email and Excel spreadsheets, helium said.
"Right now, immoderate planning, immoderate execution, starts with AI. You probe with AI, you deliberation with AI, you stock with your colleagues and what person you," Nadella said.
This week, Amazon, which is racing against Microsoft to rent retired unreality infrastructure for moving AI models, cut 14,000 firm employees.
Amazon's elder vice president of radical acquisition and technology, Beth Galetti, told workers successful a memo that "this procreation of AI is the astir transformative exertion we've seen since the Internet, and it's enabling companies to innovate overmuch faster than ever earlier (in existing marketplace segments and altogether caller ones)."
On the podcast, Nadella talked astir a Microsoft enforcement who deals with networking fiber. As the institution ramped up information halfway operations to conscionable rising unreality demand, the enforcement realized she wouldn't beryllium capable to prosecute each the radical she thought she needed, and truthful she built AI agents to grip maintenance, Nadella said.
"That is an illustration of you, to your point, a squad with AI tools being capable to get much productivity," Nadella told Gerstner, who is laminitis and CEO of exertion concern steadfast Altimeter Capital.
On Wednesday, Microsoft reported 12% year-over-year gross maturation and showed the widest operating borderline since 2002.
WATCH: Microsoft net bushed estimates, Azure gross jumps 40%
English (US) ·