Microsoft betting that enterprise AI needs engineers, not bigger sales teams

The number of tech layoffs continues to tick upwards as AI investments increase, with Microsoft alone cutting around 4,800 employees, or roughly 2.1% of its workforce, this week. The latest cutbacks are mostly in the company’s commercial sales and Xbox divisions. They follow two others in 2025 that impacted around 15,000 workers, or roughly 4% of the company’s workforce.