Microsoft的AI未来就业机会较少

MicrosoftCEOSatya Nadella在过去几年里所说的话，Microsoft目前向全美，英国，加拿大，印度约60,000名员工提供自愿买断服务。

Microsoft的AI未来就业机会较少

也是时候命名下一场"长老卷轴"游戏

这是公司首次向这么多员工提出这样的提议，Microsoft的运营成本和人头计算都是为了避免减少对AI基础设施的投资。

“我们的总的人力成本将下降，我们的人均成本将上升，我的GPU每个研究人员将上升，”近两年前，Microsoft的人会更少，但它会为留下的人提供更高的薪水、更多的工具和人工智能。

也帮助解释过去数年里Microsoft持续裁员的情况。 在过去十年中，Microsoft经常进行裁员，但在过去的几年中，裁员和行政人员离职的情况相当严重。

这些不是每年的老裁员，Microsoft解雇了4800名员工，削减对Xbox和商业销售团队的影响最大。

Microsoft的总人数也逐年下降。 Microsoft目前截至6月30日雇用了约223,000人，比2025年雇用的228,000人少了5,000人。 Microsoft去年7月解雇了4%的员工

今年早些时候，9000名合格员工中有30%以上接受了退休聘书，但这个数字对于公司最新的自愿退出供书来说可能要少得多。 这主要是因为，根据熟悉的消息来源，该提议实际上与Microsoft的定期离职条件相同，即按公司时间计算的现金、加速股票储备、一些额外的补贴医疗保险以及几个月的职业服务。

但这种异常之处在于，被给予这一退出机会的雇员人数的规模。 即使只有5%的人接受这个提议，因此我们暂时还不知道这项提议的影响。 由于11月和1月有更多解雇的传言，确实接受的员工人数肯定会告知Microsoft的下一轮削减的人数。

公司内外也有一些人认为Microsoft需要这些削减。 “Microsoft需要更少的人”，称 Merill Fernando，前Microsoft Entra产品经理。 “我一直在内部。 我亲眼看到事情如何发展。 很多小矮人。 层层。 到处是硅。”

Fernando描绘了Microsoft的画面，每个组织“都有自己的重点，听起来有点像Microsoft的每个组织互相用枪指着对方互相竞争而不是合作

Nadella甚至去年在与Stripe联合创始人John Collison的播客中提到me，承认漫画定义了Microsoft的文化叙事“比现实更真实”, “从某种意义上说，这些分裂的紧张关系中有一些是需要引起紧张关系的真正问题。 称 Nadella)，社会凝聚不是一个目标

现在的问题是，纳德拉能否为AI时代重塑Microsoft，而不取消帮助确定他领导地位的文化转变。 现在要求员工考虑AI的未来，Nadella如何处理转型问题

Xbox的Forza汽车港建筑师 27年后就要离开

几周前，我开始从Xbox员工那里听说，Dan Greenawalt，长久的创造力背后的福扎汽车港，Greenawalt作为Turn 10 Studios的负责人出发，该工作室与Forza Horizon开发商Playground Games合并的Forza汽车体育创造者。

Playground Games工作室负责人特雷弗·威廉姆斯(Trevor Williams)在最近一份内部备忘录中披露了这个消息，由Notepad看到。 称 Williams,“Dan Greenawalt决定，现在是他从Microsoft退休的合适时机。 Greenawalt将继续作为威廉姆斯和新任命的游戏首席运营官Michel Bastien的顾问，“同时他将过渡到下一阶段”。 以下是威廉姆斯关于格林纳瓦尔特的备忘录：

过去27年来，从2001年最初的XBOX上的Gotham Racing项目到创建Forza，成立Turn 10 Studios，并多次出现在我们的E3舞台上，通常都用一辆超车牵引着一个戏剧性的入口 — — 乃至更多 — — 我们非常感谢丹。 我谨代表两个小组感谢丹的领导、支持和伙伴关系。 我祝愿他今后一切顺利。

Microsoft上个月透露，作为Xbox大规模重组的一部分，它正在将自己的两个Forza开发者合并为一个工作室。 Playground Games 和 Turn 10 Studios 都合并为仅限 Playground Games. 该工作室现在有两个地点：游乐场游戏Leamington Spa和游乐场游戏Redmond.

Greenawalt退休后，Turn 10 Studios的70多人去年被解雇，此举冲击了绝大多数工作室。 在过去的一年中，Turn 10 Studios基本上一直维护着福尔扎汽车港，现在剩下的员工已经搬到了游乐场游戏公司(Playground Games)，在福尔扎地平线和Fable上工作。

是时候给长者们起名了第六卷：哨兵

自贝塞斯达正式发布宣布后，我们很少听到贝塞斯达一直致力于的游戏细节。

熟悉贝塞斯达计划的消息来源告诉我，Xbox拥有的出版商即将宣布下一部"长老卷轴"游戏将正式称为"长老卷轴VI：哨兵". 下个月就可以宣布了，这段时期将标志着自"长者卷轴V:Skyrim是发布以来的15年。

贝塞斯达最近几个月一直在播放哨兵游戏，Xbox CEO Asha Sharma在8月获得了Sentinel的现场播放，她称赞了游戏的规模和称“故事更大”。

下个月我只期待有人透露姓名，若你想完全避免游戏的破坏者

据我所知，哨兵将在哈默费尔(Hammerfell)设立，这是长者卷轴宇宙中的一个省份，它出现在《长者卷轴冒险：红卫兵和长者卷轴在线》中。 哨兵将是关于"长老史卷"历史的第一部游戏，并帮助揭开这些神秘的古代文物的秘密。

垫子

Xbox的第一任首席操作官在几个月后就出来了。 这是一个奇怪的一个。 蒋海伦21年后离开Microsoft. 她此前曾担任Minecraft的主管，7月晋升为Xbox COO. 突然离开的是宣布上星期Xbox酋长Asha Sharma的一份令人惊讶的简短备忘录 “蒋海伦今天要离开Microsoft。 称 Sharma表示：Xbox COO的立场似乎不会消失，Eurogamer在周末报道说，蒋“因违反政策而被终结”。 我从内部听到过类似的声音，但许多Xbox员工对我说，我试图获得更多细节，但如果你听到任何消息，请在Notepad@theverge.com或通过安全的信号通讯应用(我是tomwarren.

- Microsoft新的 Surface Laptop Ultra 更新修复重启并显示错误。 我在审阅时遇到了一些怪异的问题，与Surface Laptop Ultra，更新地址为屏幕闪烁、意外重启、以及长时间重启，我仍在等待Nvidia或Microsoft是否解决表面笔记本电脑Ultra上奇怪的拉吉情绪

- GitHub的前CEO发布是AI agents的竞争平台。 我们知道，前GitHub首席执行官托马斯·多姆克(Thomas Dohmke)在GitHub建立某种竞争对手，但结果在GitHub的宇宙大会的一周内令内部人惊讶。 开发者可以使用新的全景平台来主机和审查代码，但是它也设计了与AI agents合作，并用“Trails”功能取代拉动请求，该功能提供“每个代码推量上agents得分的定制电val”。 GitHub的一名雇员告诉我，“人们感到震惊，他们在我们自己的会议周上下埋伏了我们。”

Windows很快会让你在不打开浏览器的情况下进行互联网速度测试。 今年早些时候，Microsoft在Windows 11任务栏中添加了速度测试选项，但这仅仅是在您的浏览器中打开的Bing中速度测试的链接。 现在，Microsoft实际上正在将一个全速测试整合到任务栏中，这样你可以右键点击网络图标，并在那里进行互联网速度测试。

- Windows 11正在获得一些整齐的音轨板特征。 Microsoft正在添加新的Windows trackpad功能，可以更快地通过长文档和网页滚动。 您还可以通过擦拭触摸板的边缘，以及支持单指卷轴来连续滚动一页。 我很喜欢看到Windows增加这些功能。

- Microsoft 称它的AI工具比诊断条件下的医生更好。 Microsoft 声称开发了一个AI动力工具，它能诊断出比人类医生更准确的4倍的病情。 研究结论于上周发表在《科学》杂志上，Microsoft将人工智能系统与人类医生作对，从医疗病例报告和急诊部门数据中得出了一系列假设。 Microsoft认为自己的工作意义重大，称 Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman在接受The Verge采访时，“这是一个飞跃，但这是这一旅程中的一个重要里程碑。”

- Microsoft认证器缺陷让恶意的Android应用窃取信物。 Enclave的安全研究者发现 Microsoft 认证员的弱点让一个无名小卒

本文由 AI图鉴自动抓取并翻译，版权归原作者所有；如需查看原文请点下方链接。

To anyone listening closely to what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been saying over the past couple of years, this week felt like the clearest sign yet that AI is about to fundamentally change the size of Microsoft’s workforce. Microsoft is now offering voluntary buyouts to around 60,000 employees across the US, UK, Canada, and India.

Microsoft’s AI future has fewer jobs

It’s also time to name the next Elder Scrolls game, and Xbox’s architect of Forza Motorsport is leaving.

It’s the first time the company has presented such an offer to so many employees, expanding greatly upon the retirement offer that was limited to around 9,000 employees earlier this year. It’s all part of an ongoing effort to avoid reducing investment in AI infrastructure by lowering Microsoft’s operating costs and headcount.

“Our total people costs will go down, our cost per head will go up, and my GPU per researcher will go up,” Nadella said on a podcast almost two years ago, responding to a question about AI’s impact on headcount. That’s a financial way of saying Microsoft will have fewer people, but it will offer higher salaries and more tools and AI power to those who remain.

It also helps explain the continued layoffs we’ve seen at Microsoft over the past couple of years. Microsoft has been performing layoffs regularly over the past decade, but over the past couple of years, the layoffs and executive departures have been significant.

These aren’t the annual layoffs of old; they’re now happening every few months. This week’s voluntary exit offer arrived just months after Microsoft laid off 4,800 employees, cuts that impacted its Xbox and commercial sales teams the most.

For the first time in a decade, Microsoft’s overall headcount has also gone down year over year. Microsoft now employs around 223,000 people as of June 30th, 5,000 fewer than the 228,000 people it employed in 2025. Microsoft laid off 4 percent of its workforce in July last year, and it’s now offering voluntary buyout offers to around a quarter of its employees.

More than 30 percent of the 9,000 eligible employees accepted a retirement offer earlier this year, but that number will likely be far less for the company’s latest Voluntary Exit Offer. That’s largely because, according to sources familiar, the offer is practically the same as regular severance terms at Microsoft — cash based on time at the company, accelerated stock vesting, some additional subsidized health coverage, and several months of career services.

But what makes this unusual is the scale of the amount of employees who have been offered this exit. Even if only 5 percent accept the offer, that’s still 3,000 employees. I understand eligible employees have until December to decide, so we won’t know the impact of this offer for a while yet. With rumors of more layoffs in November and January, the amount of employees who do accept will surely inform Microsoft’s numbers for its next round of cuts.

There are some, both inside and outside the company, who think Microsoft needs these cuts. “Microsoft needs fewer people,” says Merill Fernando, a former Microsoft Entra product manager. “I’ve been on the inside. I’ve seen how things get built. Lots of small orgs. Layers on layers. Silos everywhere.”

Fernando paints a picture of a Microsoft where every organization “had its own priorities and its own decision makers,” so it’s hard to get the company to do anything collectively. It sounds a little like the meme where each organization in Microsoft is pointing guns at each other, competing instead of collaborating.

Nadella even addressed that meme last year in a podcast with Stripe co-founder John Collison, acknowledging that the comic has defined Microsoft’s cultural narrative “more so than reality,” but that it had signaled some very real tensions inside the company. “In some sense, some of these divisional tensions are real issues that need to have tension. Social cohesion is not a goal, winning in the marketplace is a goal,” said Nadella.

The question now is whether Nadella can reshape Microsoft for the AI era without undoing the cultural transformation that helped define his leadership. A company that has shifted to be built around empathy is now asking its employees to reckon with an AI future that could make many of their jobs unnecessary. How Nadella handles that transition will define his legacy as much as the growth and success he’s achieved over the past decade.

Xbox’s architect of Forza Motorsport is leaving after nearly 27 years

A few weeks ago I started hearing from Xbox employees that Dan Greenawalt, the longtime creative force behind Forza Motorsport, is leaving after almost 27 years. Greenawalt is departing as the head of Turn 10 Studios, the Forza Motorsport creator that merged with Forza Horizon developer Playground Games.

Playground Games studio head Trevor Williams revealed the news in a recent internal memo, seen by Notepad. “Dan Greenawalt has decided that this is the right time for him to retire from Microsoft,” says Williams. Greenawalt will stay on as an adviser to Williams and the newly appointed Playground Games chief operating officer, Michel Bastien, “while he transitions to his next phase.” Here’s part of Williams’ memo about Greenawalt:

It’s hard to overstate Dan’s impact over the past 27 years. From shipping Project Gotham Racing on the original XBOX in 2001 to leading the creation of Forza, founding Turn 10 Studios and appearing so many times on our E3 stage, usually making a dramatic entrance with a supercar in tow – and so much more – we owe tremendous thanks and gratitude to Dan. On behalf of both teams, I would like to thank Dan for his leadership, his support, and his partnership. I wish him well for whatever comes next.

Microsoft revealed last month that it was merging its two Forza developers into a single studio as part of a massive restructuring of Xbox. Both Playground Games and Turn 10 Studios have merged into just Playground Games. The studio now has two locations: Playground Games Leamington Spa and Playground Games Redmond.

With Greenawalt retiring and Turn 10 merged into Playground Games, it’s not clear if we’ll ever see Microsoft return to Forza Motorsport. More than 70 people at Turn 10 Studios were laid off last year, in a move that hit the vast majority of the studio. Over the past year, Turn 10 Studios has essentially been maintaining Forza Motorsport, and now the remaining employees have moved to Playground Games to work on Forza Horizon and Fable.

It’s time to name The Elders Scrolls VI: Sentinel

It’s been more than eight years since Bethesda officially announced the existence of the sixth game in its Elder Scrolls series. While there have been some debates around platform exclusivity for The Elder Scrolls VI, we’ve heard very little detail about the game that Bethesda has been working on all this time.

Sources familiar with Bethesda’s plans tell me that the Xbox-owned publisher is about to announce that the next Elder Scrolls game will officially be called The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel. The announcement could come as soon as next month, during a period that will mark 15 years since The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released.

Bethesda has been showing off Sentinel gameplay in recent months, I’m told. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma got a live playthrough of Sentinel in August, and she praised the scale of the game and said “the story is even greater.”

While I’m only expecting a name reveal next month and nothing more, I’ve been hearing some additional details about the game. If you want to totally avoid spoilers about the game, then don’t read the next paragraph.

I understand that Sentinel will be set in Hammerfell, a province in the Elder Scrolls universe that’s appeared in The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard and The Elder Scrolls Online. Sentinel will be the first game about the history of the Elder Scrolls, and help uncover the secrets of these mysterious ancient artifacts.

The pad

- Xbox’s first chief operating officer is out after just a few months. This is a weird one. Helen Chiang is leaving Microsoft after 21 years. She previously served as the head of Minecraft before being promoted to Xbox COO in July. The sudden departure was announced in a surprisingly short memo from Xbox chief Asha Sharma last week. “Helen Chiang is leaving Microsoft today. I’m grateful for her years of service and wish her well,” says Sharma. It doesn’t seem like the Xbox COO position is going away, as Sharma notes that “we’ll share more on COO leadership as plans are finalized.” Eurogamer reported over the weekend that Chiang had been “terminated for policy violations.” I’ve heard similar chatter internally, but Chiang has been described to me by multiple Xbox employees as highly respected, with high integrity, so this turn of events is quite odd. I’m trying to get more details, but if you’ve heard anything, please reach out confidentially at notepad@theverge.com or through the secure Signal messaging app. (I’m tomwarren.01.)

- Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop Ultra update fixes reboot and display bugs. I ran into some weird issues with the Surface Laptop Ultra during my review, and Microsoft is now fixing some of them with a firmware update. The update addresses screen flickering, unexpected restarts, and lengthy reboot times alongside unspecified “additional bug fixes and general performance improvements.” I’m still waiting to see if Nvidia or Microsoft addresses the strange laggy feeling on the Surface Laptop Ultra, and it’s too early to say whether this firmware update addresses that or not yet.

- GitHub’s former CEO launched a competing platform for AI agents. We knew that Thomas Dohmke, former GitHub CEO, was building some kind of competitor to GitHub, but the result has surprised people internally during the week of GitHub’s Universe conference. Developers can use the new Entire platform to host and review code, but it’s also designed to work with AI agents and replaces pull requests with a “Trails” feature that offers “customizable evals that are scored by agents on every code push.” One GitHub employee tells me, “people are shocked, they have ambushed us up and down the stack on our own conference week.”

- Windows will soon let you perform an internet speed test without opening your browser. Microsoft added a speed test option to the Windows 11 taskbar earlier this year, but it was just a link to a speed test in Bing that opened in your browser. Now, Microsoft is actually integrating a full speed test into the taskbar, so you can right-click the network icon and perform an internet speed test right there.

- Windows 11 is getting some neat trackpad features. Microsoft is adding new Windows trackpad features that let you scroll through long documents and webpages faster. You’ll also be able to continuously scroll through a page by swiping the edge of your touchpad, along with support for single-finger scrolling. It’s the small things that count, and I love to see these kinds of features being added to Windows.

- Microsoft says its AI tool is better than doctors at diagnosing conditions. Microsoft claims to have developed an AI-powered tool that it says can diagnose conditions up to four times more accurately than human doctors. The findings were published last week in Science, one of the world’s most prestigious journals. Microsoft has pitted its AI system against human physicians on a series of scenarios drawn from medical case reports and emergency department data. While there’s still a long road ahead before this AI system can be widely deployed, Microsoft thinks its work is significant. “It needs clinical validation,” says Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman in an interview with The Verge. “That is a leap, but this is a major milestone along that journey.”

- Microsoft Authenticator flaw lets malicious Android apps steal tokens. Security researchers at Enclave have discovered a vulnerability with Microsoft Authenticator that lets an unprivile

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