Amazon CEO Andy Jassy speaks throughout a keynote deal with at AWS re:Invent 2024, a convention hosted by Amazon Net Providers, at The Venetian Las Vegas on December 3, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Noah Berger | Getty Photos
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy stated Tuesday that the corporate’s company workforce will shrink within the coming years because it adopts extra generative synthetic intelligence instruments and brokers.
“We’ll want fewer folks doing among the jobs which are being executed right this moment, and extra folks doing different kinds of jobs,” Jassy stated in a memo to workers. “It is onerous to know precisely the place this nets out over time, however within the subsequent few years, we anticipate that this can cut back our complete company workforce as we get effectivity positive aspects from utilizing AI extensively throughout the corporate.”
Jassy wrote that workers ought to learn to use AI instruments and experiment and work out “easy methods to get extra executed with scrappier groups.”
The directive comes as Amazon has laid off greater than 27,000 workers since 2022 and made a number of cuts this yr. Amazon reduce about 200 workers in its North America shops unit in January and an extra 100 in its units and providers unit.
Amazon had 1.56 million full-time and part-time workers in its international workforce as of the tip of March, in accordance with monetary filings. The corporate additionally employs short-term staff in its warehouse operations, together with some contractors.
Amazon is utilizing generative AI broadly throughout its inner operations, together with in its success community the place generative AI is being deployed to help with stock placement, demand forecasting and the effectivity of warehouse robots, Jassy stated.
Different tech corporations have made comparable proclamations about how AI stands to remodel their workforces. In April, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke stated workers will likely be anticipated to show why they “can not get what they need executed utilizing AI” earlier than asking for extra headcount and sources. And final month, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski stated the corporate has shrunk its headcount by 40%, partly resulting from investments in AI and pure attrition in its workforce.
Amazon has made massive investments in AI, launching a flurry of its personal merchandise and quickly constructing out information facilities to fulfill surging demand for the expertise.
In his most up-to-date letter to shareholders, Jassy referred to as generative AI a “once-in-a-lifetime reinvention of every little thing we all know.” He added that the expertise is “saving corporations a lot of cash,” and stands to shift the norms in coding, search, monetary providers, purchasing and different areas.
“It is transferring sooner than nearly something expertise has ever seen,” Jassy stated.
