On the scene for Microsoft’s latest layoffs and AI security announcement

Microsoft’s Redmond campus was quiet. The irony hanging in the air was palpable. The tech giant had a couple of big things happen overnight.

The first was its next foray into the AI space with a new product called Security Copilot. The second was the reduction of 559 workers from its Seattle-based campuses.

I just happened to be in Seattle when the news broke. So I headed over to the campus.

Another day, another round of gut-wrenching layoffs

Layoffs have become par for the course in the big tech space. In 2023 alone there have been large workforce cuts at Amazon, PayPal, Alphabet, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.

Microsoft itself already announced thousands of cuts earlier this year, as well as plans not to renew its lease on its 26-storey building in Bellvue once the lease expires in mid-2024.

Australia hasn’t been spared from the carnage. In recent weeks we’ve seen redundancies from Atlassian, Xero and Mr Yum.

But what made this particular round stand out was the juxtaposition between Microsoft’s significant push into AI and its reduction in workforce.

It was less than two weeks ago that it announced Microsoft 365 Copilot. Its proprietary chatbot is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 and is designed to work across the Microsoft 365 suite.

Overnight it added to its bank of AI products with Security Copilot — at the same time that some reports indicated that the recent job cuts included security operations workers in Seattle as well as cyber security employees in Israel.

What actually is Microsoft Security Copilot?

According to Jon Friedman, Corporate Vice President of Design & Research at Microsoft — Security Copilot is aimed at professionals in the space.

We were on a call at the time as I was perched on a bench in Redmond with dodgy internet. He was giving me a demo of the regular Copilot features like Business Chat but I had to finish the call by asking about the new security-focused product.

Microsoft has been quite transparent about the mistakes AI can still make. And that got me wondering about the fears that could ignite if we injected relatively early-stage AI into the cyber security space — where people can already tend to be paranoid about safety.

“The product we announced today really helps security professionals debug incidents more than anything – and debug and quicker,” Friedman said on the call.

“So in that regard, you’re talking about highly trained professionals in enterprise companies who are security officers  and security experts who can run down incidents faster.”

In other words, it’s to speed up the everyday tasks of people who know what they’re doing and can spot issues.

“The AI at times comes up with things that are slightly off or wrong. So we have the same UI affordances around transparency and control. This really is just about speeding up, understanding where an incident is coming from, what’s happening, and how to actually mitigate anything happening with that incident.”

The US Microsoft team provided some further details in writing.

“Security Copilot combines the most advanced OpenAI GPT-4 model, with a Microsoft-developed security-specific model powered by global threat intelligence, security data, and product usage insights. It is the first security product to enable defenders to truly move at the speed and scale of AI,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email to SmartCompany.

Okay but what about the layoffs?

While the exact positions laid off this week haven’t been verified by Microsoft, it’s difficult to ignore the reports.

The mere idea that a cohort of workers in security operations divisions could be let go in the same 24-hour period as a major security-focused AI release is groan-inducing.

Ever since ChatGPT went viral in November, and the industry followed suit, there have been consistent questions about ethics and concerns over AI being a replacement for human-worked jobs.

“Responsible AI is really important to us,” Friedman said.

“I’ve gotten questions around layoffs from folks who are focused on responsible AI. And the truth is for the last five years we’ve been investing heavily in responsible AI.”

According to Friedman, what started as a small team serving the broader company grew into hundreds of people embedded throughout Microsoft.

“We’ve just been investing more and more and… it makes way more sense as we’ve made AI a huge part of our product portfolio to invest in the places where we’re building the product.”

“While there’s been a shift in our focus of resources during the economic challenges we’ve all been facing — our commitment to both Responsible AI and security continues to go up.

“If you look at the overall investment, we’ve invested in both those spaces over the last bunch of years pretty significantly. And we will continue to. But at the same time, we have to shift our focus and make sure we’re putting resources in the right places where we can have the most impact on our customers and our business.”

Silence and surprises at Microsoft Redmond

When I hung up the phone I was left wondering what the workers thought. So I decided to ask around.

And it was a mixed bag.

Some were rushing to meetings. The majority were upfront about their unwillingness to talk. I was met with a handful of “no comments” and one admittedly quite funny, “That’s a big old no.”

I couldn’t blame them. I’d be nervous to talk to a reporter too. Especially at my place of work.

What did surprise me were the few who had no idea what I was talking about. Some hadn’t heard the news till I broke it to them, Others knew something had happened but didn’t know anymore because it didn’t impact their department.

Mostly the campus was still. There was no buzz of activity or flurry of people going from one place to another. The quiet almost hung in the air. It was like an outward reflection of silence I was met with from workers who, justifiably, wanted to get away from me as quickly as possible.

The quiet was eventually permeated in a way I didn’t expected — the sound of guitars and singing. I was confused. As it turns out, the joyful sounds were coming from a church group from Indonesia. They had set up camp in front of the Microsoft sign.

One of their members revealed they were there for a visit and wanted to offer prayers to God.

On a day like this, I’m sure they’re not the only ones.