Microsoft is bracing for a big change -- it won't be renewing contracts for dozens of its contractors working at MSN. As a replacement for these workers, the company will instead use artificial intelligence, several reports claim.
Cutting down staff is part of a bigger push by Microsoft to shift to AI to pick news and content on MSN.com, inside Microsoft Edge, and in several Microsoft News apps. Laid-off employees mostly belong to the SANE (search, ads, News, Edge) team, whose tasks involve picking stories and curating content.
According to reports, Microsoft's layoffs aren't related to the current COVID-19 health crisis. But it goes without saying that media businesses all over the world have been greatly affected by the pandemic due to the scarcity of revenue from advertising across newspapers, TV, and online platforms.
"Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. "This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time to time, re-deployment in others. These decisions are not the result of the current pandemic."
Microsoft's layoff plans were first reported by Business Insider on Friday, saying that around 50 jobs are affected in the U.S. Additionally, around 27 are being let go in the U.K. after the Windows-maker decided to not employ human editors anymore to curate articles on MSN.com.
Full-time news producers employed by Microsoft will be retained by the company; they perform functions similar to those being let go. But all contracted news producer jobs have been eliminated. Contract employees, apart from production work, also work on assigning content to partner news websites, maintain editorial calendars, and plan content.
MSN launched in 1995, putting Microsoft in the news business for around 25 years already. Upon the company's decision to launch Microsoft News, it added more editors to its workforce, specifically "more than 800 editors working from 50 locations," as Microsoft puts it.
In recent months, there has been a change within Microsoft, favoring the use of artificial intelligence for its Microsoft News platform. The company also encouraged journalists and publishers to make use of AI as well.
AI is being used to scan, process, and filter content, and this also applies in photos for human editors to pair it with. Before the big AI shift, the tech giant had been using human editors to curate top stories to display on Microsoft Edge, MSN, and Microsoft News.
