Microsoft announced a time-limited voluntary exit offer for eligible employees in four countries, as former Entra product manager Merill Fernando argues that smaller teams using AI agents could move faster.
The program, announced Oct. 26, covers employees at level 70 and below in participating organizations in Canada, India, the United Kingdom and the United States. It includes financial assistance and career-planning support. Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s executive vice president and chief people officer, said the offer gives participating organizations “another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs.”
In a post on X, Fernando blamed internal divisions for slowing technology adoption and called for a smaller workforce with wider use of AI agents. He said teams had been slow to adopt managed identities because they had separate priorities and decision-makers.
Microsoft told GeekWire that about 60,000 employees qualify for the offer. That is an estimate of eligibility, not a projection of departures. A 2026 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lists approximately 223,000 full-time employees worldwide as of June 30.
Fernando said layoffs, relocations and performance plans had harmed former colleagues and their families. Microsoft said in July that more than 30% of eligible employees joined an earlier voluntary retirement program and that it had moved more than 4,000 employees into new roles during the previous year.
The managed-identity issue has a longer technical history. Microsoft previewed Azure Active Directory Managed Service Identity on Sept. 14, 2017, giving applications a way to access Azure services through an identity managed by the platform, without credentials stored in application code. A later Secure Future Initiative report describes a requirement for specified resource types to use Azure Managed Identity for client authentication, along with team guidance and tracking of adoption barriers. The report documents those later measures but does not confirm Fernando’s explanation that internal silos slowed earlier adoption.
Microsoft is scheduled to report fiscal 2027 first-quarter results after the market closes Wednesday, Oct. 28. Its earnings webcast is set for 5:30 p.m. ET (21:30 UTC).
