AI in 10
The most important AI story—explained in 10 minutes.
Every day, I break down the biggest AI story in just 10 minutes - what it is, why it matters, and how you can actually use it. No tech jargon, just AI made simple.
AI in 10
Microsoft just killed Mixed Reality for AI
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Referenced Links:
Microsoft cuts Mixed Reality jobs to focus on AI initiatives
Microsoft dissolves HoloLens teams in latest restructuring
Former Microsoft employees share layoff experiences
Microsoft's AI strategy and priorities
Want to go deeper with AI? A community of professionals is learning AI together right now at aihammock.com — show notes, links, tools, and real conversations about how to actually use AI in your life.
Welcome to AI Inten. I'm Chuck Getchell, and every day I break down the biggest AI story in just 10 minutes. What it is, why it matters, and how you can actually use it. Microsoft just cut hundreds of jobs from its mixed reality and HoloLens teams this week, and they're making money hand over fist on AI. I'm Chuck Getchell, and this is AI Inten was what happened, why it matters, what you can do with it. Let's go. Here's what went down earlier this week. Starting on May 21st, Microsoft began quietly laying off several hundred employees from its mixed reality, HoloLens, and what they call future experiences teams. Internal memos made it crystal clear. This wasn't about struggling financially. This was about moving money and people from AR and VR projects straight into their core AI bets. The cuts hit hardware engineers working on HoloLens devices, designers building AR and VR experiences, and some applied AI folks whose work was more experimental than revenue generating. Multiple employees posted on LinkedIn that entire sub-teams were dissolved overnight. Projects were shelved indefinitely. But here's the kicker Microsoft isn't some struggling startup trimming fat to survive. They're one of the biggest winners in the current AI wave. Their stock is soaring, their earnings are strong, largely thanks to AI-driven demand for their cloud services, and yet they're still cutting people to fund their AI push even harder. This is what AI reallocation looks like inside a profitable company. It's not a collapse, it's a reshuffling of who matters and who doesn't. The managers who delivered the bad news framed it as aligning resources with their most strategic growth areas. Translation: if your work doesn't directly connect to co-pilot Azure AI or enterprise AI services, you might be expendable. Even if you're working on genuinely innovative technology. Think about that for a second. A few years ago, HoloLens and Mixed Reality were supposed to be the future of computing. Microsoft invested billions. They talked about revolutionizing how we work and interact with digital information. Now, that future has been quietly traded for large language models and AI co-pilots. Which is like discovering your company's moon landing program got canceled to fund better calculators. So why should you care about corporate reshuffling at Microsoft? Because this isn't just about Microsoft. This is a preview of what's coming to every industry. If you work anywhere in tech, even at companies that are thriving, your job security increasingly depends on one question. Can you clearly explain how your work connects to AI initiatives? Talking to software developers, product managers, designers, data analysts, marketing people. If your answer is vague or you have to stretch to make the connection, you're in the danger zone. Not because AI will automate your job away tomorrow, but because your company's budget priorities are shifting toward AI-aligned teams. This is already happening beyond Microsoft. Other tech giants are watching this playbook closely. Meta has been de-emphasizing some VR investments. Apple is pouring resources into on-device AI. Every major company is asking the same question. Which projects can we fund by moving money away from other initiatives? But it's not just tech companies. I'm seeing this in financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, retail. Executives are demanding that departments justify their existence against an AI first strategy. Marketing teams have to show how they're using AI tools. Operations groups need to demonstrate AI-powered efficiency gains. HR departments are being asked how they're preparing the workforce for AI integration. It's like every budget meeting now starts with the question: how does this make us more competitive in an AI-driven world? For your daily life, this means a couple of things. First, the products you'll see in the future are going to skew heavily toward AI integration rather than fancy hardware like AR headsets. Instead of mainstream affordable HoloLens style devices, you're getting more AI agents embedded in the apps you already use. Outlook writing emails for you, Windows automating routine tasks, teams summarizing your meetings. Second, if you live in areas with major tech offices, such as Seattle, Austin, parts of California, even these targeted layoffs create ripple effects. More competition for remaining jobs, potential impacts on local housing markets, specialists in AR, VR, and hardware looking for new opportunities. And here's the part that hits closest to home. Your own company is probably watching this Microsoft playbook and taking notes. So, what can you actually do about this? I've got one very specific action you can take today, and it doesn't require learning to code or becoming a data scientist. Start documenting how you use AI tools to do your current job better. Not someday. Today. Here's exactly how to do this. Open a simple document. Could be Google Docs, could be Notion, could be a Word file. Title it something like My AI Enhanced Work Examples. Then start capturing specific instances where you've used AI to save time or improve quality. Did you use Chat GPT to draft an email to a difficult client? Document that. Include the prompt you used and the result. Did you use AI to analyze a spreadsheet of customer data? Write down what you asked it to do and what insights you got. Have you used AI image tools to create graphics for presentations? Capture examples, used AI to brainstorm solutions to a problem at work. Document the conversation and the outcome. The key is being specific. Don't just write I use ChatGPT sometimes. Write I use ChatGPT to draft three different versions of our quarterly project update, which saved me two hours and resulted in clearer communication with stakeholders. Do this for two weeks. I guarantee you'll be surprised how much AI you're already using, even if it doesn't feel like much. Then, and this is the crucial part, start sharing these examples strategically, not in a bragging way, but as part of normal work conversations. When your team discusses productivity improvements, mention how AI helped you solve a recent challenge. When your boss asks about your quarterly goals, include specific ways you're using AI to work more efficiently. If you're in performance review season, this documentation becomes gold. You can show concrete examples of how you're already part of your company's AI transformation, not someone who needs to catch up to it. Here's why this matters so much. When your company inevitably has its own reallocation conversation, you want to be seen as someone who's already AI fluent and delivering results, not someone who's resistant to change or stuck in old workflows. This isn't about becoming an AI expert overnight. It's about positioning yourself as someone who embraces the tools and finds practical ways to use them. Because when budget and headcount decisions get made, companies keep the people who are already contributing to the AI narrative, not the ones who are tangential to it. And if you're thinking, but I'm not in tech, this doesn't apply to me, you're wrong. Every industry is watching what Microsoft and other tech leaders do with their workforce. The same logic is coming to accounting firms, law offices, hospitals, manufacturing companies, retail chains, and consulting groups. The question isn't whether your industry will prioritize AI-aligned roles. The question is whether you'll be ready when it does. Look, what Microsoft did this week isn't unique or surprising. It's a clear signal that we're in a phase where AI isn't just creating new opportunities. It's also determining which existing opportunities survive. The companies that are winning with AI aren't just adding it on top of everything else. They're making hard choices about where to focus their resources and talent. They're deciding which bets to double down on and which ones to quietly shelve. For individuals, this creates both risk and opportunity. The risk is obvious. If your work feels disconnected from your organization's AI priorities, you're more vulnerable when restructuring happens. But the opportunity is huge. If you can demonstrate real value using AI tools in your current role, you become part of the solution rather than part of the overhead. The people who thrive in this transition won't necessarily be the ones with the most technical skills. They'll be the ones who can bridge the gap between AI capabilities and real business problems. The ones who can show up on Monday morning with specific examples of how they used AI to serve customers better, make smarter decisions, or solve problems faster. That's not a technical skill, that's an adoption skill. And it's something you can start building today by simply paying attention to where AI already fits into your work and being intentional about expanding that footprint. Microsoft's reshuffling this week is just the beginning, but if you start documenting your AI usage now, you'll be ready for whatever reallocation conversation comes to your industry next. That's today's AI Inten. If you want to go deeper and learn AI with a community of people just like you, join us at aihammock.com. I'll see you tomorrow, my friends.
