A bright, sunny open-plan office with rows of desks, and on every laptop screen a little white robot waves. At the front, a worried young man in a green hoodie and lanyard sits at his laptop and asks, "Who's going to do my job?" The robot on his screen waves and says, "Don't worry about it." At the back, under a glowing green sign that says VOLUNTARY EXIT, a smiling woman in a grey suit holds a glass door open over a welcome mat and says, "Nobody has to go. The door's just open." Next to her is a stack of envelopes marked 8 WEEKS and a December calendar with the 31 circled in red. Down the rows, some chairs have no one in them, just a laptop with a waving robot.

No Longer Optional

October 27, 2026

Microsoft is offering about 60,000 of its workers a way out.

Last year, one Microsoft division told its managers that using AI "is no longer optional." This week, the company asked a much bigger group whether they want to stay.

June 2025. Business Insider reports an email from Julia Liuson, who runs Microsoft's developer division, telling her managers that "using AI is no longer optional" and that it "should be part of your holistic reflections on an individual's performance and impact." A Microsoft spokesperson told UC Today "there is no formal review of an employee's AI usage." The memo went to one division, not the whole company.
April. Microsoft announces its first-ever voluntary retirement program, open to about 7% of its U.S. employees. A spokesperson later said 30% of the 8,600 who could take it did.
July. About 4,800 jobs are cut, roughly 2.1% of the workforce at the time, mostly in the commercial and Xbox divisions.
October 26. Amy Coleman, Microsoft's chief people officer, sends the memo. The offer "gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice," she writes, and "gives participating organizations another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs." It "builds on what we learned earlier this year" from the retirement program.
Who gets it. People in the U.S., Canada, India and the U.K., up to vice president. A spokesperson said every department is in "except marketing, sales, and some engineering teams." Business Insider's report lists sales, some engineering and some corporate functions instead.
What it pays. In the U.S., at least eight weeks' pay, with stock still vesting, health care and career help. People have until the first week of December to say yes, and leave on December 31. The spokesperson called it "a standard severance offer," without the extras the retirement program had.

And when I see you coming down the line