A video of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella resurfaced on social media after the company reportedly offered a voluntary exit offer (VEO) to around 60,000 employees.
A video from June 2026, featuring Nadella in a conversation with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman on the Possible podcast, emerged on X this week, where he talks about his vision of a workplace powered by millions of artificial intelligence agents.
In the interview, the Microsoft chief imagined a future in which “20,000" human employees could work alongside “2 million or even 20 million” AI agents.
On the future, Nadella said, “…What I think we have not yet gotten right under a good understanding and a shared understanding is what is this future of work going to look like when you have…let's take Microsoft, we have 20,000 employees and we have let's say 2 million uh agents or 20 million agents all in a loop.”
“What is happenin, what is the tacet knowledge that gets created, what is the artifacts that are going between agents, between agents and humans and so on. All that's now going to be played out in the next whatever even multiple years. You can see early,” Nadella had said in the podcast.
Microsoft's voluntary exit programme
On October 26, Microsoft announced a voluntary exit programme covering more than a quarter of its global workforce, including eligible employees in India, the US, the UK and Canada.
A statement attributed to Amy Coleman, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer, and shared on the Microsoft blog, read, “Today, we’re introducing a new Voluntary Exit Offer (VEO) to eligible employees within participating organizations.”
"This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support. It also gives participating organizations another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs," it added.
Under "What employees should know" section, the statement informed that this offer will be available to eligible employees in participating teams in Canada, India, the United Kingdom and the United States at level 70 and below.
"This is a time-limited, voluntary program that gives those who are eligible the opportunity to leave Microsoft with financial support and career planning resources," the statement added.
It noted that some organisations are providing the Voluntary Exit Offer, and some are not. "Participation varies based on each business’s priorities, customer commitments and workforce needs," it added.