AI Will Eliminate Jobs at Amazon, Warns CEO Andy Jassy
Amazon is gearing up for significant changes to its workforce as Generative AI becomes a more integral part of the company. In a message to employees, CEO Andy Jassy stated that as AI takes on more tasks, the types of jobs Amazon requires will shift, and this could result in a decline in corporate roles overall. “As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” said Jassy. “It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company,” he added. While he stopped short of announcing immediate layoffs, the message clearly indicated that efficiency gains from AI adoption will likely reduce the total number of corporate roles over the next few years. Jassy said that the company has already built or is in the process of developing more than 1,000 GenAI applications and services, many of which automate functions previously carried out by humans. He expressed strong confidence that AI agents will fundamentally change how people work and live. Jassy described these agents as software systems that use AI to perform tasks on behalf of users or other systems. “Think of agents as software systems that use AI to perform tasks on behalf of users or other systems,” he explained. These AI-powered tools, he added, can handle a wide range of tasks—from scouring the web and summarising results to writing code, detecting anomalies, translating language, and automating repetitive work. “Agents let you tell them what you want (often in natural language)… and automate a lot of tasks that consume our time,” Jassy said. He urged employees to embrace the change and actively upskill. He encouraged them to “be curious about AI, educate yourself, attend workshops and take trainings, use and experiment with AI whenever you can.” Reflecting on his early days at Amazon, Jassy recalled joining the company in 1997 as an Assistant Product Manager, working on “leaner teams that got a lot done quickly” and where individuals could make a real impact. “We didn’t have tools resembling anything like Generative AI,” he noted, “but we had broad remits, high ambition, and saw the opportunity to improve—and invent—so many customer experiences.” Jassy described Generative AI as “the most transformative technology since the Internet” and said those who embrace it will be “well-positioned to have high impact and help us reinvent the company.”
“As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.”
Amazon is gearing up for significant changes to its workforce as Generative AI becomes a more integral part of the company. In a message to employees, CEO Andy Jassy stated that as AI takes on more tasks, the types of jobs Amazon requires will shift, and this could result in a decline in corporate roles overall.
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Siddharth is a media graduate who loves to explore tech through journalism and putting forward ideas worth pondering about in the era of artificial intelligence.