New Delhi, Aug. 11 -- In July, Microsoft announced it was laying off 9,000 employees, bringing the total job cuts this year to over 15,000. This isn't a company in trouble. Quite the opposite: Microsoft just reported a quarterly net income of $27.2 billion, and its stock price has soared past $500 per share.

So, why is it laying off thousands?

The answer is chilling and profoundly important: Microsoft's layoffs are not a sign of distress-they are a strategic reallocation of resources in response to a fundamental shift in how work gets done in the artificial intelligence (AI) era. These cuts are the canary in the coal mine-an early but unmistakable signal that the world of work, especially knowledge work, is about to be dramatically resh...