Although it announced a cut of about 10,000 jobs earlier this year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has just given an ambitious vision for the company to continue to increase the number of employees, but this new workforce will be equipped to work more productively and effectively thanks to AI.
Speaking at a podcast hosted by Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, Nadella emphasized that Microsoft's human resource growth will have a completely different meaning in the AI era.
We will increase the number of employees, but the way I see it, the number of employees we increase will have a much greater impact than the number of employees we have before AI, Nadella said.
This announcement came as other tech giants such as Amazon and Salesforce continued to shake up with large-scale cuts.
Although many companies refuse to provide specific reasons, leaders and technology experts are increasingly considering AI as a key factor shaping both recruitment and human resource cuts.
According to the Indian-born technology leader, the new Microsoft employee will be able to find a way to do their job differently, by leveraging powerful AI features.
Specifically, they are AI features in Microsoft 365 productivity software and AI GitHub Copilot programming assistant.
Both tools are now powered by advanced large language models (LLM) developed by OpenAI and Anthropic.
Nadella believes this change is a natural step forward, similar to the fact that corporations have to adjust to apply new technologies such as fax, email or Excel spreadsheets decades ago.
"Currently, all plans and implementation activities start with AI. You research with AI, you think with AI, you share with your colleagues and others," Nadella explained.
He cited a typical example of a Microsoft CEO who built AI agents to handle data center maintenance, helping a team of employees achieve significantly higher productivity.
Nadella's statement attracted attention because it was made right after a series of layoffs. After ChatGPT was launched in 2022, Microsoft, a major investor of OpenAI, saw its staff increase by 22% in that fiscal year.
However, in 2023 and the first half of 2024, the tech giant announced a total of more than 10,000 cuts.
However, CEO Nadella sees a future where human resource growth will reach its peak. He predicted: "I think the learning and forgetting process will take place in about the next year, then the human resource growth rate will reach the maximum level".
This shows that Microsoft is making a strategic shift from maintaining a large workforce to focusing on employees who are capable of fully exploiting the power of AI.
The cut is a necessary restructuring step to pave the way for a new generation of employees, who will act as productivity amplifiers and achieve impressive business results.
The proof is that the company has just reported a revenue growth of 12% and achieved the highest operating profit margin since 2002.
