In a fascinating update, Judson Althoff, the Chief Commercial Officer at Microsoft, made a case this week for the importance of AI tools across a variety of business functions, such as enhancing productivity in sales, improving customer service efficiency, and streamlining software engineering tasks. If you'd like to delve into the specifics, Bloomberg's report covers it all. According to Althoff, the effective application of AI has even resulted in Microsoft saving over half a billion dollars - a massive feat achieved in its call center alone last year.

This wonderful news follows closely on the heels of a rather grim announcement from Microsoft, which recently let go of more than 9,000 employees, thus marking the third wave of job cuts this year, that leaves the total tally of impacted employees around 15,000.

To the laid-off employees struggling to make sense of their sudden job loss, the news of these impressive cost savings and the record profitability might come across as a sharp slap in the face.

Adding to the complexity of this narrative is a now-vanished LinkedIn post by Xbox Game Studios’ producer Matt Turnbull. Interestingly, Turnbull suggested in his post last week that the employees affected by the layoffs should consider turning to AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot, which could potentially help assuage the mental load that comes with an unexpected job loss.

No one can say for sure whether AI replaced the recently laid-off workers or whether the workforce adjustments were just a post-pandemic business strategy. What's relatively clear is that amidst record-breaking profits, these layoffs have created a challenging situation for the affected workforce.

In financial terms, Microsoft's opening quarter was an absolute powerhouse with a staggering $26 billion in profit and $70 billion in revenue. Its impressive performance has catapulted the company's market capitalization to roughly $3.74 trillion, nudging past Apple and nearly reaching Nvidia.

A standout highlight of Microsoft's strategy is its significant investment in AI, pouring nearly $80 billion into establishing an AI-centered infrastructure announced back in January. As a result, Microsoft is poised to stir up the competition for top-tier AI researchers in the industry, which implies a likelihood of them spending millions on A-grade AI brains rather than on intermediate-level employees.