Last week, Bloomberg Informed Microsoft shared internally that it saved $ 500 million in the cost of the call center, thanks to AI – immediately after the company 9,000 people closedThird round in a series of total trimmed of 15,000.
What does this mean for the technical industry – and the security of the job for humans – massively?
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Microsoft trimmed, despite heavy profits
According to Bloomberg, Judson Althoff, the Chief Commercial Officer of Microsoft, shared in a presentation that AI equipment was improving productivity in many teams including sales, customer service and engineering, given that AI had created more than one third of Microsoft’s new products. Althoff said that AI had reduced the cost of customer service by $ 500 million, increasing the satisfaction of employees and customers.
The fact is that Microsoft still reported such positive numbers while eliminating the staff – a step that is usually reserved for hard financial time – insults for injury to many, especially as the remaining execution AI used to generate hiring call graphics And suggested fired employees Look for comfort from AI tool, Other reports tell Many of those roles are being replaced with AI – in some cases, AI that now helped them to create.
The same week of the trimming, in one announcement “Putting Peepal First,” under the title Microsoft Launched Microsoft elevated And this Ai economy instituteElevate is a social impact fund through which Microsoft says that he will “globally donate cash and AI and cloud technology to help K-12 schools, community and technical colleges and non-profit institutions to help them further their missions.” The AI Economy Institute, meanwhile, is a “corporate think tank” that focuses on the “AI for Good” initiative.
Debate on AI’s impact on jobs
It is reported that many technical companies and leaders have mentioned, rapid succession, that AI is ready to change at least a few percent of human personnel. In May, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodi said that he hoped that AI would give half of all admission level white-collar jobs in the next five years, while pushing unemployment to 20%. A recent survey found that 43% of the managers evaluated whether AI could handle the jobs of their direct reports, in fact they have been replaced with AI.
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At the same time, some research and predictions claim that AI will increase some jobs – and in some cases, even make new roles, although it is definitely not as much as it ends.
ZDNET’s Senior Contribution Editor Ed Bottle, a long -time Microsoft Supervisor, thinks that the shift is relatively standard in terms of the history of tech.
He said, “Everything I see from outside is conforming to the approach that Microsoft is getting benefits from AI using similar strategies and equipment that is urging to deploy its customers,” he said. “This involves automating regular tasks in sales and support, and using devices such as Github Copilot to generate codes that an engineer can edit and test.”
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He said, “It is probably not all that is different from the infection that when the electronic switching equipment changed telephone operators through the previous generations of the workers, the PC replaced the typing pool, and the page layout tools made the print designers more skilled,” he said.
Bottle reported that Microsoft “in more advanced settings, such as enterprise security tools to identify events” have been using machine learning for years – but these recent announcements do not believe that “there is any magic in work here.”
Effect of AI Policy
The new law can also explain the strategy behind the retrenchment of Microsoft. As Analysis by Morgan StanleyThe Trump administration has recently included guidelines in research and development expenditure in the “Big, Beautiful” tax bill, which stand to reduce the taxable income of Big Tech if companies carry money in that area and other areas.
The current administration is creating several incentives (and very low regulation) for AI, which is for workers to move forward without any underlying security. Trump’s AI action plan, or formal AI policy, is scheduled to be declared on 23 July next week. During his first week at the office, Trump reversed any of the activists involved in President Biden’s AI Executive Order.
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Microsoft’s “People-First” initiative points to a potential landing point between policy and reality: most investment will pursue AI in practice, while companies issue skill training support to bridge the difference between current talent and the next chapter of capitalism. Employees and applicants will be expected to take initiative and use those resources, not regulation-supported security that encourage companies to maintain more human roles.
Currently there are no federal laws that prevent employers from changing workers with AI – although “the labor department urges transparency, human monitoring, and workplace to reduce the risks of AI Perinogen in the workplace,” Mary Nickes, Lin Pinkar, Lynn Pinkar, Lin Pinkar, is a partner of Hurt and Shaveman and specialist in the labor and IP law.
State Law – Including those people Colorado, Illinois, CaliforniaAnd New york – To move a little faster, but so far, only security, prejudice and algorithms address discrimination, not activists.
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Nicks said, “The current federal anti-discrimination law-as the title applies to VII, ADA, and ADEA-II-Casated Employment Decisions, and EEOC has warned that algorithm equipment can violate these safety if they produce biased results,” Nixs told ZDNET. “AI-powered automation when triggering large-scale pruning, the WARN Act may also require notice, although its scope was designed for different conditions and will require modernization to clearly apply in this developed landscape.”
What does the future look like
How are tech experts and labor reacting to news?
A Google’s interaction designer, Tej Kalandda, believes that many companies will follow the tendency to trim in the near future – but think that it will only produce more than employment concerns, especially for creative areas.
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“When we exclude humans by shaping the AI system, we manufacture models that are biased, incomplete and culturally hollow,” he told ZDNET, stating that AI makes “remix” material more often with scratches. “Companies will hit a roof when they realize that their equipment can only be re -added that is already present. True innovation requires a dirty, unexpected area of human creativity.”
Kaliyana’s comments point to a clear reality: AI needs to get its training data from anywhere, not that this model suffers from collapse. “Right now, AI feeds on the decades of man-made culture. But if we stop investing in those who build the culture, instead of analyzing it only, we will run out of the fuel,” he said. “Companies that understand this thrives when computational efficiency matters less than the ability to imagine that it does not exist yet.”
AWS’s John Cain recently offered ZDNET a uniform prediction on originality, but for finance: AI workers will make “premium on creativity and decision” in the sector of AI workers, typically human talents that will separate automated management with personal carefully.
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“Existing labor laws were not designed for the speed and secret of algorithm displacement,” says Patriss Lindo, CEO of professional consultancy career nomad. “Most workers can be replaced under ‘business requirement’ arguments, and companies are not obliged to resume or re -form displaced talent.”
Solution? “Regulators need to move beyond the slow ‘AI Ethics Framework’ and applied transparency and accountability laws,” says Lindo, “legally, we can amend. Worker adjustment and notification When ACT Threshold, Tie Tax Incentives to Retling, or mandate algorithm transparency is affected, but political will is real obstacle. ,
For others, apsculing is only reality. Jenny Bearerd, a board member of the Ethical Tech Project, said, “I hate this because I really care about people and their livelihood – but technological innovation always brings with the winners and losers in the job market.” “Speaking as a compassionate practical/technical-humanist, I believe that we will do well to make uses as a society easily available and rescue programs and focus on helping workers develop flexible mentality and important thinking skills that will help them customize and adjust to a changing market.”
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Bearerd also suggests that the apcining may obscure other purposes, given that $ 4 billion Microsoft Eleivet sets aside “fulfills its goals of making markets to adopt and adopt their equipment.”
“Is any responsible for the development of AI training, thoughts of morality, moral structure or standards?” She asks.
Ultimately, like many others, Baird feels that AI job shift is unavoidable. “If your job is not interrupted or not converted significantly by AI in the next 5-10 years, I think you will be in the minority,” she concludes.
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