Microsoft: Latest News and Where It Stands

Microsoft turns Copilot into a work tool and offers buyouts to a quarter of its staff

Updated November 7, 2026

Microsoft makes Windows, the Office apps now sold as Microsoft 365, the Azure cloud and Xbox, and it also owns LinkedIn and GitHub. Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded it in 1975; Satya Nadella has been CEO since 2014. Its AI products run under the Copilot name, built partly on models from its long-time partner OpenAI.

Security questions pile up while the company reorganizes around AI

November opened with two very different Windows stories. Microsoft listed concrete ways Windows 11 now runs better on PCs with 8GB of RAM, pointing to updates that improve speed and memory management in many apps. In the same week, Ars Technica reported on BlackX, a UEFI bootkit that infected fully patched Windows machines by taking advantage of how unclear Microsoft has been about what Secure Boot protects. Separately, a report on Microsoft Teams attacks described hackers reaching corporate systems by posing as help desk staff, and CVE-2026-83844, a remote code execution flaw in Paint said to need neither a login nor a click, was published with a CVSS score of 8.1. The months before were no more flattering: a record September patch release, 1,400 fixes in October including two zero-days, and an October update bug that stopped users from turning on a setting that blocks suspicious apps. On October 19 Microsoft itself told enterprises to treat AI agents like insider threats.

The product push underneath started with Copilot. On September 25 Microsoft unveiled a rebuilt Copilot app that folds coding and always-on agents into the chat window, organized as Home, Code and Autopilot. Bloomberg read the relaunch as a retreat from the consumer companion race against ChatGPT and Gemini. The price, Microsoft said, is still 'evolving'. Four days later OpenAI launched office features inside ChatGPT, putting the two partners in more direct competition on Microsoft's oldest turf. Windows got the same treatment on October 7 in San Francisco, at Microsoft's first major Windows event in more than two years. Copilot is getting access to local files and the ability to take actions across the operating system, an approach Microsoft calls 'Hybrid Intelligence', and Windows search is being rebuilt as a chatbot. The hardware to match is the Surface Laptop Ultra, which runs on Nvidia's Arm-based RTX Spark chip and starts at $2,599. Early reviews said it delivers on most of Microsoft's promises, with battery life as the weak spot.

Behind the product push is a company reorganizing around AI spending. Microsoft split its financial reporting into two segments and, on October 28, disclosed Azure's quarterly revenue in dollars for the first time: $33.2 billion. Two days earlier it offered voluntary buyouts to roughly 60,000 employees in the US, Canada, India and the UK, about a quarter of its workforce, while it keeps betting billions on AI infrastructure. PC revenue, by contrast, declined. The leadership bench is changing as well, with communications chief Frank Shaw and Office and Teams head Ryan Roslansky both announcing their departures.

Key moments

• Nov 3 — BlackX bootkit gets past fully patched Windows: A UEFI bootkit called BlackX infected Windows machines with every patch applied, so staying up to date was no defense. Its opening was Microsoft's own vagueness about what Secure Boot protects, which turned a malware report into a question about the company's guidance.
• Oct 28 — Azure revenue disclosed in dollars for the first time: Under its new two-segment reporting, Microsoft put a dollar figure on Azure's quarterly revenue for the first time, $33.2 billion. Investors can now compare it directly with AWS.
• Oct 26 — Buyouts offered to a quarter of the workforce: Microsoft offered voluntary exits to about 60,000 employees in the US, Canada, India and the UK. It is the clearest sign yet that the company is reshaping its staff around AI spending.
• Oct 7 — Surface Laptop Ultra on Nvidia's RTX Spark: At its first major Windows event in over two years, Microsoft launched a Surface laptop on Nvidia's Arm-based RTX Spark chip and let Copilot act on local files across Windows. It set the template for Windows as a local AI platform.
• Sep 25 — Copilot relaunched as one work-first app: Microsoft merged consumer and business Copilot into a single app built around work, with coding and agents inside the chat. It marked a step back from competing with ChatGPT as a personal companion.

Earlier milestones

• Jan 23, 2023 — ★ Multi-billion-dollar OpenAI deal: A new multi-year, multi-billion-dollar investment in OpenAI tied Microsoft's products and Azure cloud to the company behind ChatGPT.
• Feb 4, 2014 — ★ Satya Nadella succeeds Steve Ballmer as CEO: Nadella's appointment marked the turn toward cloud computing and, later, AI that has defined Microsoft since.
• 1986 — ★ Microsoft goes public: The 1986 IPO and the share-price rise that followed made three billionaires and gave the company capital for its expansion.
• Nov 20, 1985 — ★ Windows 1.0 ships: Windows began as a graphical layer on top of MS-DOS and grew into the operating system that defined the PC era.
• 1975 — ★ Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft: Microsoft started out selling BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800 hobbyist computer, a software-first beginning that shaped the company.

Key numbers

• Azure quarterly revenue (first dollar disclosure, October 28, 2026): $33.2 billion
• Employees offered voluntary buyouts (October 2026): around 60,000 employees
• Surface Laptop Ultra starting price: $2,599
• Surface RTX Spark Dev Box price: $6,000
• Security bugs fixed in the October 2026 Windows update: 1,400 security bugs
• Xbox Cloud Gaming cap for Ultimate subscribers (from November 2026): 15 hours a month
• Reported price range for Project Helix, the next Xbox (2028): $1,200 to $1,800
• Debt Lambda raised to buy Nvidia chips leased to Microsoft: $1B

Stories in progress

• Copilot picks work over companionship: Since the September 25 relaunch, Copilot is a single enterprise-first app instead of separate consumer and business products. Nadella pitched the rethink in person to key enterprise customers at an invite-only event, and even the new $80 Surface Mouse ships with an action button meant mainly for calling up Copilot. What Microsoft has not settled in public is what the merged product will cost.
• Windows rebuilt around local AI, with Nvidia on stage: Jensen Huang joined Nadella at the October 7 event, and the partnership is the hardware story of the season: the Surface Laptop Ultra on Nvidia's RTX Spark chip, plus a $6,000 Surface RTX Spark Dev Box shipping in November. Wired called the laptop a true MacBook Pro competitor for Windows, held back only by its battery life.
• Reliability and the sovereignty question: Outlook and Microsoft 365 suffered a multi-day outage from August 31 into September, after GitHub went down worldwide for 7 hours and 47 minutes on August 17; Cursor launched a rival code-hosting platform the next day. In Europe, Switzerland began moving 3,000 federal staff off Microsoft 365 with a target of the end of 2027, and the Netherlands is building a NixOS-based alternative after US sanctions on the ICC cut its chief prosecutor off from Microsoft services.
• Xbox under cost pressure: From November, Ultimate subscribers get 15 hours of cloud gaming a month, and anyone can pay as they go without Game Pass. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma denied on September 30 that the business is for sale, and a later profile reported a 2028 target for Project Helix at $1,200 to $1,800, with a Microsoft handheld planned for 2027. On November 4 Microsoft previewed a phone-as-controller option for smart TVs and a cloud connection that links the new Xbox Nano controller directly to Xbox Cloud Gaming over Wi-Fi, while an updated Xbox PC app that launches up to 60 percent faster is reaching Insiders first.

What to watch

• What the merged Copilot will cost businesses and individuals, now that Microsoft calls the price 'evolving'.
• Whether the 60,000 buyout offers are the end of the workforce cuts or are followed by layoffs.
• How quickly Azure's newly disclosed dollar revenue closes on AWS over the next few quarters.
• Whether giving Copilot control of local files and OS actions holds up, given Microsoft's own warning about agents and the August Copilot flaw that let attackers steal passwords through a link.
• Whether Microsoft spells out what Secure Boot does and does not protect against, now that BlackX has exploited the ambiguity.

Sources

• UEFI bootkit infected fully patched Windows machines. Is Microsoft to blame?
• Microsoft just shared Azure’s actual revenue in dollars: $33.2 billion
• Microsoft offers to buy out a quarter of its workforce
• Everything announced at Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra event
• Microsoft thinks its new Copilot ‘super app’ will be as influential as Office
• Multi-billion-dollar OpenAI deal
• Microsoft offers buyouts to around 60,000 employees
• Microsoft's Surface RTX Spark Dev Box costs an eye-watering $6,000
• Windows update patches a whopping 1,400 security bugs –  including 2 zero days
• Microsoft slashes Xbox Cloud Gaming to just 15 hours a month for Ultimate subscribers
• Microsoft reportedly projects $1,200 to $1,800 price for 2028 Project Helix
• Neocloud Lambda secures $1B in debt to buy more chips