The 9,000+ people laid off by Microsoft's gaming division in early July include 200 employees of the King studio, known for Candy Crush Saga. Reportedly, they were replaced with AI tools that the employees themselves helped develop and train.
According to internal sources at King, developers have spent years building proprietary generative AI tools to optimize tasks such as level creation, interface design, scriptwriting, and quality assurance. These AI systems, trained on employee-generated content, now perform work more efficiently and at a lower cost than before. Some employees have described the shift as a “dystopian” transformation of their creative workflows.
Microsoft has done two major rounds of workforce reductions in 2025, affecting 6,000 employees in May and an additional 9,000 in early July. Analysts and media outlets have linked the cuts to the company’s increasing use of artificial intelligence. Finally, CEO Satya Nadella stated that AI’s role in handling repetitive tasks reduces the need for certain roles.
The July layoffs caused significant controversy, particularly after Matt Turnbull, an executive producer at Xbox Game Studios Publishing, posted on LinkedIn a suggestion to laid-off employees for using AI tools to manage the psychological impact of job loss. The post even included example AI prompts. But it drew widespread backlash from the public and media, causing Turnbull to remove it shortly afterward.
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