Eat or be eaten by AI, Amazon CEO warns staff

Expect headcount reductions over the next few years, says Andy Jassy

Amazon staff on Tuesday got an email from their CEO advising that some of them will probably be replaced by bots.

CEO Andy Jassy’s memo said that Amazon is accelerating its use of generative AI, both internally and in its products. He cited Alexa+ as one example of where the company was heading, although Amazon's CISO recently told us the company has a bit more work to do on safety guardrails before the personal assistant goes on general release. Testers are currently trying it out but the release date still hasn't been announced.

"Over a million people now have access, and we’re pleased with the customer response - we're getting lots of great feedback and learning as we scale," an Amazon spokesperson told us today. "We're continuing to roll out to customers at an increasing pace, and excited to make it even more broadly available over the summer."

Jassy said that Amazon would "lean in further" to using generative AI programs internally as well, and the company is working on - or has completed - over a thousand generative AI programs. But it is going to mean headcount reduction in the short-term.

"As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done," he declared.

This will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI

"We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs. 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 avoid the AI guillotine, Jassy recommended that staff get busy learning new skills, attending workshops, and experimenting with AI. Amazon workers tell us that AWS Skill Builder is free to all staff (outsiders have to pay $29 a month for some of the content), and has some useful courses, and others that aren’t great.

In the memo, Jassy recounts that when he joined Amazon as a lowly assistant product manager in 1997 the company was much smaller and teams were leaner and scrappier. With generative AI as the next big technology, those who learn how to use it "will be well-positioned to have high impact and help us reinvent the company."

Jassy's memo didn't mention any immediate job cuts, and Amazon's return-to-office policy may end up reducing headcount through voluntary attrition anyway.

Amazon’s boss is a prominent advocate of telling staff that the lockdown days of no commuting are over, and almost all Amazon's staff are now expected to be in the office five days a week - something fewer than one in ten staff are happy about.

There's growing evidence that people are staying away from employers who want to reintroduce a five days in the office routine. Last month a study of British workers found that half would start looking for another job if such a regimen was enforced, and Amazon may find that losing people is easier than it thought.

Not that the e-commerce and cloud giant has any problems laying folks off if necessary. Like most tech companies Amazon went on a hiring binge during the Covid pandemic, doubling its headcount to 1.6 million by 2021. Since then Amazon has fired at least 27,000 staff and more cuts are expected as the cost cutting continues.

As for where this stops, no one knows. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is predicting a bloodbath, with half of white collar jobs going in the next five years. Some academics are more hopeful, but if you sit down with a bunch of coders or entry-level security folk, the mood isn't optimistic. ®