Microsoft Lays Off Nearly 4,800 Across Xbox and Commercial Sales

TechCrunch·high signal

Microsoft cut around 4,800 roles — roughly 2.1% of its global workforce — on Monday, July 6, hitting the Xbox and commercial sales divisions. It's the latest in a run of layoffs stoking fears of AI displacing jobs, and lands the same week Microsoft is publicly shifting internal workloads to its cheaper MAI models. For builders, it's another data point on the AI-labor-substitution thesis coming from the largest software employers.