A group of current and former Microsoft employees is circulating an open letter that accuses the company of pursuing artificial intelligence at the expense of its workers, customers and climate commitments. The letter has gained fresh attention after Microsoft offered voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 staff, more than 25 percent of its workforce. The company says it is the first offer of its kind.

Workers describe a demoralised workplace

Signed 'concerned Microsoft workers', the letter says that for many employees, working at the company has become 'joyless and demoralising'. It links the decline in morale to the period when Microsoft stepped up its AI investments, and also cites heavy workloads, repeated reorganisations and the risk of being replaced by AI.

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The signatories say staff are pushed to use AI tools across almost every part of their jobs, often with little training and no explanation beyond speed. They describe a costly cycle of learning new tools, fixing poor AI output and rolling back features that don't work well.

Safety, contracts and climate concerns

The complaints extend beyond the workplace. The signatories claim Microsoft's own research shows AI agents do not put user safety first, and that internal planning documents discuss ways to get people hooked on AI products. They also object to secretive data centre projects, the company's contracts with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Israeli military, and what they call circular investments among a small group of AI firms.

The letter's demands fall under three headings - no AI without worker input and protections, no AI without community protections, and no trading away environmental promises for AI. On climate, the group wants Microsoft to recommit to being carbon negative, water positive and zero waste by 2030. It also asks the company to involve employees in decisions on how AI is built and used, and to stop tying AI use to rewards or reprimands. Membership is open to full-time staff, employees of subsidiaries such as GitHub and LinkedIn, vendors, interns and contractors.

Buyout offer spans four countries

The Voluntary Exit Offer covers eligible employees at level 70 and below in participating teams in India, the US, the UK and Canada. Sales and some engineering teams are excluded. Those who accept receive at least eight weeks of base pay, with the amount rising by level and tenure. They have until December 9 to decide and would leave on December 31.

In a note to staff, chief people officer Amy Coleman described the offer as a new choice that lets employees make the transition now with support. The company expects fewer than 5 percent of eligible employees to accept.

This is Microsoft's second buyout programme of 2026. In April, about 8,600 long-serving US employees were offered early retirement, and roughly 30 percent took it. In July, the company cut about 4,800 jobs, including a fifth of its Xbox workforce. That followed 10,000 layoffs in 2023 and more than 15,000 in 2025. Headcount stood at 223,000 in June, down 5,000 from a year earlier.

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Record profit, small raises

The timing has drawn notice inside the company. Two days after announcing the buyouts, Microsoft reported quarterly profit of $36.6 billion, up 32 percent, on revenue of $92.3 billion. Capital spending, mostly on data centres, rose 30 percent to $45.2 billion, and the company expects to spend about $170 billion this calendar year.

Employees told The New York Times that merit raises this year were unusually small, in some cases below 1 percent. At a town hall last month, a question on how leadership weighed more than $100 billion a year in AI spending against flat pay drew over 80 reactions, roughly double the usual.

Staff who left describe a grimmer culture

Gretchen Thomas, a 57-year-old design leader who left in September after five years, told the paper her stock award was reduced partly because she did not consistently show speed and a readiness to experiment, including with AI. "I just can't believe how grim it's gotten just in the last three years," she said.

Coleman has said the buyouts are not tied to how AI is changing work, according to the report, though she did not rule out future layoffs. For employees who remain, the bigger concern is the workload left behind. Several told the paper they don't expect departing colleagues to be replaced, which would put more work on those who stay.