Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has told his workforce that their jobs could be taken by generative AI in the coming years.
In a memo sent to employees on 17 June, Jassy wrote that Amazon expects "efficiency gains" from AI across the company, which would result in job losses.
"We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs," Jassy wrote in the memo. "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."
To protect themselves from AI-job cuts, Jassy urged staff to be "curious" about AI, and to educate themselves and attend workshops and training sessions within the company. Though he ends that paragraph with a call to get more done with "scrappier" teams.
The memo also suggested that those who embraced the change could become "conversant in AI" and help to improve Amazon's overall AI capabilities. Jassy, who first started at Amazon in 1997 as an assistant product manager, likened the learning curve to his own experience of working on internal leaner teams within AWS.
"We didn't have tools resembling anything like generative AI, but we had broad remits, high ambition, and saw the opportunity to improve (and invent) so many customer experiences," Jassy wrote.
There have been more than 27,000 job cuts at Amazon since 2022, with the most recent losses across its devices and services group and the books division. According to the memo, Amazon already has more than 1,000 AI services and apps that the company has either built or is in production, but that, Jassy notes, is just a "small fraction" of what it plans to launch in the near future.
-
Malware as a service explainedExplainer What is malware as a service (MaaS), why is it so popular with adversaries, and what can businesses do to protect themselves from this growing threat?
-
Developers face a torrent of malware threats as malicious open source packages surge 188%News Researchers have identified more than 16,000 malicious open source packages across popular ecosystems
-
Is ChatGPT making us dumber? A new MIT study claims using AI tools causes cognitive issues, and it’s not the first – Microsoft has already warned about ‘diminished independent problem-solving’News A recent study from MIT suggests that using AI tools impacts brain activity, with frequent users underperforming compared to their counterparts.
-
‘Agent washing’ is here: Most agentic AI tools are just ‘repackaged’ RPA solutions and chatbots – and Gartner says 40% of projects will be ditched within two yearsNews Agentic AI might be the latest industry trend, but new research suggests the majority of tools are simply repackaged AI assistants and chatbots.
-
CEOs and CISOs at odds over the benefits of generative AINews While CEOs are hugely enthusiastic, CISOs worry about governance and legacy technology
-
Microsoft says workers should believe the hype with AI tools: Researchers found Copilot users saved three hours per week sifting through emails, gained more focus time, and completed collaborative tasks 20% fasterNews Using AI tools paid dividends for some workers, but alternative research shows it could create problems for others down the line.
-
Meta executive denies hyping up Llama 4 benchmark scores – but what can users expect from the new models?News A senior figure at Meta has denied claims that the tech giant boosted performance metrics for its new Llama 4 AI model range following rumors online.
-
DeepSeek and Anthropic have a long way to go to catch ChatGPT: OpenAI's flagship chatbot is still far and away the most popular AI tool in offices globallyNews ChatGPT remains the most popular AI tool among office workers globally, research shows, despite a rising number of competitor options available to users.
-
Productivity gains, strong financial returns, but no job losses – three things investors want from generative AINews Investors are making it clear what they want from generative AI: solid financial and productivity returns, but no job cuts.
-
Legal professionals face huge risks when using AI at workAnalysis Legal professionals at a US law firm have been sanctioned over their use of AI after it was found to have created fake case law.
