New Delhi, Oct. 27 -- Tech giant Microsoft has offered 60,000 employees, accounting for about 27% of its global workforce, voluntary buyouts as the company spends heavily on artificial intelligence. According to Microsoft's Chief People Officer Amy Coleman, the voluntary exit offer was available to eligible employees in Canada, India, the United Kingdom and the United States.

"The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us," Coleman wrote in a blog post Monday. "We'll learn from it. At the same time, we'll keep helping people focus on the work that matters most, build new skills and, where it makes sense, find new opportunities across Microsoft."

The company, which releases its quarterly financial results Wednesday, had approximately 223,000 fu...