Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has advised employees to embrace artificial intelligence (AI), predicting it will lead to a smaller corporate workforce within the next few years.
In a Tuesday memo to staff, he urged them to be proactive in learning about AI’s potential.
Amazon’s announcement is the latest in a series of statements from major corporations outlining their AI strategies, amid growing concerns about widespread job displacement.
Jassy anticipates AI will deliver “efficiency gains,” resulting in a reduction of the company’s corporate workforce.
“We will need fewer people doing some current jobs, and more people doing other types of jobs,” he wrote.
“It’s difficult to predict the exact long-term impact, but over the next few years, we expect this will decrease our total corporate headcount as we leverage AI extensively across the company.”
Companies, particularly in the tech sector, have significantly increased their AI investments in recent years, driven by advancements that have simplified chatbot creation of code, images, and text with minimal instruction.
However, the rise of these tools has prompted warnings from tech leaders about job losses, especially in entry-level office roles.
Dario Amodei, CEO of AI firm Anthropic, recently told Axios that AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs.
Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “Godfather of AI,” echoed these concerns in a recent podcast.
“This is a fundamentally different technology,” he stated, challenging the notion that AI-driven job losses will be offset by new job creation, a pattern observed with previous technological shifts.
“If AI can handle all routine intellectual tasks, what new jobs will it create? You’d need highly specialized skills to hold a job it couldn’t perform.”
Amazon employed over 1.5 million people globally at the end of last year.
The majority are based in the US, where Amazon is the second-largest employer after Walmart.
While many work in e-commerce warehouses, approximately 350,000 are employed in office roles.
Jassy’s memo noted Amazon’s widespread use of AI and its potential to automate routine tasks, including shopping and daily chores.
“Many of these AI agents are yet to be developed, but they are coming quickly,” he wrote, emphasizing that employees who adapt to these changes will be well-positioned within the company.
He mentioned that half a million sellers on Amazon’s platform already use the company’s AI tools for product information creation, and advertisers are also adopting its AI offerings.
Illustrator Nich Angell fears advancing technology could soon “replace the artist entirely”.
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