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Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts to as many as 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce, according to Kotaku’s account of Business Insider reporting. The offer comes as Microsoft competes in the AI race, but the report does not say the programme is caused by AI or that 60,000 people will leave.

Employees who choose to go will receive severance. Microsoft chief people officer Amy Coleman called the offer new for the company and said it would learn from it. This is a notably large offer, not a confirmed round of 60,000 job cuts, a distinction worth keeping intact when the headline is doing its best to blur it. The company also ran a voluntary retirement programme in the spring, offered to 9,000 employees; about a third accepted, Kotaku reports, citing Business Insider. How many people take this offer will show whether Microsoft’s latest workforce reshaping is a modest exit route or a much bigger change.

Discuss: When a technology company offers buyouts to a quarter of its workforce, should that be treated as routine restructuring or as a sign its priorities are shifting?

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