Business Insider obtained an internal Microsoft document that managers fill out to identify employees the company cannot afford to lose, and it includes a separate paragraph dedicated to the contribution of specialists to the development of artificial intelligence.
Business Insider obtained an internal Microsoft document that managers fill out to identify employees the company cannot afford to lose, and it includes a separate paragraph dedicated to the contribution of specialists to the development of artificial intelligence.
The document, which Business Insider reviewed, contains questions like: «What harm would be done if an employee left Microsoft?»
«With AI transformation as a key priority, please indicate whether this individual is a critical AI talent and share the risk to the AI initiative (s) if the talent is not retained,» the document, addressed to Microsoft executives, states.
The document was written for a specific large group within Microsoft. It’s unclear, however, whether the AI question has been added to similar retention documents elsewhere within the company. Additionally, a company spokesperson said organizations and teams can choose to add different fields based on their strategic priorities.
However, the addition of the AI question to this particular document suggests that the wars for AI talent may be pushing some Microsoft divisions to do more to prevent talent from being poached by competitors.
Google, OpenAI, Meta, and other tech companies are competing to develop the most powerful AI models and the best generative AI tools, and they need employees who know the technical details of building those products. This has led to bidding wars for some talent and sometimes multi-million dollar compensation packages.
As of September, the average salary for Microsoft AI specialists was about 37% higher than the average salary for all employees at the company in the U.S. For example, software engineers working in AI earned 48% more than the average software engineer at the company.
