After 15,000 Layoffs, Microsoft Cuts Employee Library and Newspaper Access, Shifts Focus to AI-Based Learning

Microsoft’s restructuring around artificial intelligence is reaching deep into its workplace culture. The company is closing its long-running employee library and ending many of its newspaper and journal subscriptions, not as a cost-cutting measure, but as part of a broader shift toward what it calls an “AI-powered learning experience.”  

For years, Microsoft’s library was a quiet but valuable resource. Employees could check out business books, access global reports, and read leading US newspapers. According to a long-standing office legend, the library’s collection was once so heavy it caused a building to sink. That story may be folklore, but the shelves and subscriptions were real - and now they’re being phased out.  

Beginning in late 2025, publishers started receiving automated emails from Microsoft’s vendor management team, informing them that contracts would not be renewed. Longtime partners like SNS, which supplied global reports to Microsoft’s 220,000 employees for more than two decades, were among those cut off. Staff who relied on those reports were told the service was being “turned off.”  

Employees have already noticed the impact. Access to digital publications such as *The Information* has been removed, and business books can no longer be checked out from the Microsoft Library. While Microsoft has occasionally rotated publishers in the past, this time the change is more sweeping-  a deliberate restructuring to align employee learning with AI-driven tools.  

According to The Verge, Microsoft says that subscriptions are being discontinued as part of its transition to a “modern, AI-powered learning experience” through the company’s Skilling Hub. The platform is designed to replace traditional resources with AI-driven training and knowledge systems, reflecting Microsoft’s belief that artificial intelligence should be at the center of how its workforce learns and adapts.  

Microsoft has been investing heavily in AI, weaving it into products like Office, Windows, and Azure, while reshaping internal operations to match. For employees, however, the loss of familiar resources like newspapers and business books marks the end of an era - and a clear signal that the company’s future learning will be guided by algorithms, not archives.  

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