Artificial intelligence is increasingly replacing human labor. This is felt by individuals who lose income or work, as well as large companies that are cutting costs. One of Microsoft’s top executives said at a private presentation that in 2024 alone, the company saved hundreds of millions of dollars by automating work tasks. At the same time, Microsoft is actively reducing staff.
Such significant savings due to AI reports Bloomberg citing internal sources. According to Microsoft’s Chief Commercial Officer Judson Althoff, call center automation alone has brought the company more than $500 million in savings. At the same time, the introduction of AI seems to have increased the satisfaction of both employees and customers.
This statement was made against the backdrop of a large-scale staff reduction. Last week Microsoft announces layoffs of another 9 thousand workers. And the total number of dismissed employees this year is already about 15 thousand. At the same time, the company’s general counsel Brad Smith assured that productivity «was not the main reason» for these cuts. It is ironic that he spoke about this at an event where the company presented investments in AI education.
Althoff also said that AI is already helping sales, customer service, and even software developers. Moreover, AI has started communicating with small customers. Although this is a new area of AI use in Microsoft’s business, it has already generated tens of millions of dollars in sales.
However, these figures raise questions. First, Microsoft did not explain how it calculated these «saved» $500 million. If the company simply summed up the salaries of laid-off employees, this does not necessarily mean real savings. Besides, other companies that also replaced people with AI sometimes had to bring back human labor due to a decrease in service quality.
Regardless of the methodology, Microsoft did show impressive revenue growth in the second quarter of fiscal year 2025 — plus $7.6 billion or 12%. The company attributes most of this growth to the development of AI.
It is obvious that Microsoft considers automation to be an effective strategy and is ready to continue to cut staff to save money. Whether this will be justified in the long run is an open question. However, it is already clear that large-scale investments in AI are yielding concrete financial results for the company.
Source: futurism
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