By Jordan Novet
Publication Date: 2026-04-08 17:13:00
The Microsoft store is pictured in Manhattan on March 31, 2026, in New York City.
Zamek | View Press | Corbis News | Getty Images
A longtime Microsoft executive leading the software company’s development tools group, Julia Liuson, told employees that she will retire in June and become an advisor.
Liuson joined Microsoft in 1992, the same year as CEO Satya Nadella.
“We will continue building on the progress already underway to flatten teams, operate AI-first and reduce toil,” she wrote in a memo.
Her departure comes as Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, faces mounting competition from startups such as Cursor with products that rely on generative artificial intelligence models to help developers write code.
Building on relationships with AI model builders Anthropic and OpenAI, while also striving to formulate models in house, Microsoft is working to make AI a key part of its toolchain that third-party developers can use to create applications and websites.
Cursor’s annualized…
