Seattle: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has instructed employees to prepare for a leaner corporate workforce as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integrated into the company’s operations.
In a memo to staff, Jassy urged employees to ‘be curious about AI’ and highlighted the company’s increasing reliance on the technology, predicting it will significantly reshape job roles within the next few years.
Jassy stated that as Amazon gains ‘efficiency’ through AI, fewer people will be needed to perform many of today’s tasks. “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.
“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,” the CEO added.
Amazon is the latest in a growing list of major firms announcing internal AI strategies amid global concerns over potential job losses, particularly in white-collar and entry-level roles. Jassy’s remarks align with broader industry concerns:
Dario Amodei, CEO of AI company Anthropic, recently told Axios that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level office jobs.
Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer in AI research known as the ‘Godfather of AI,’ also warned in a recent podcast that this generation of technology is fundamentally different from past innovations and could displace a wide range of intellectual jobs.
“If it can do all mundane human intellectual labor, then what new jobs is it going to create?” Hinton asked, casting doubt on the idea that AI will create more opportunities than it eliminates.
As of the end of last year, Amazon employed over 1.5 million people globally, making it the second-largest employer in the US after Walmart. While the majority work in warehouse and logistics roles, approximately 350,000 are in corporate office positions.
Jassy emphasized that AI is already present in ‘virtually every corner of the company,’ and will increasingly be capable of handling routine tasks like shopping and household chores.
“Many of these agents have yet to be built but make no mistake, they’re coming and coming fast,” the CEO said and also encouraged employees to embrace the changes, stating that those who do would be ‘well-positioned’ within the organization.
The memo also highlighted that over 500,000 third-party sellers on Amazon’s platform are currently using its AI tools to generate product information, and advertisers are actively adopting the company’s AI offerings as well.
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