After months of layoffs and organisational restructuring, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has confirmed that the company is ready to expand its workforce again — this time with artificial intelligence at the centre of its growth strategy.

Microsoft’s next phase of hiring will look different from its pre-AI expansion years, with a sharper focus on efficiency and technology-driven growth. “I will say we will grow our headcount, but the way I look at it is that headcount we grow will grow with a lot more leverage than the headcount we had pre-AI,” Nadella said in a podcast with investor Brad Gerstner. Advertisement

Microsoft ended its 2025 fiscal year in June with around 228,000 employees, roughly the same as a year earlier, after multiple rounds of layoffs that cut more than 15,000 positions

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