As Amazon adopts generative AI, CEO Andy Jassy asks employees to learn...', says, ‘We will need fewer people'

As doubts over whether the coming of Artificial Intelligence will cut jobs and render millions in India jobless, many leaders like the late Ratan Tata, Mohandas Pai, Arindam Paul, founder of Atomberg and many others have warned about AI replacing human jobs. However, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Wednesday told employees that the firm’s corporate workforce will be significantly reduced in the coming years as the e-commerce leader is incorporating generative artificial intelligence tools and AI agents in its processes. 

Amazon CEO's ultimatum to employees

Jassy wrote about the scope of generative AI in a message to employees saying it is “a once-in-a-lifetime technology” that will transform how the company operates. Amazon is a tech firm that has one of the highest net worth in the tech world. In such a situation, Andy Jassy requested employees to learn the use of AI tools and “how to get more done with scrappier teams.” 

“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 gain efficiency from using AI extensively across the company,” he wrote in a memo addressed to the employees.  

Mass layoffs across IT industry

This move comes at a time when IT giants like Microsoft, Google, Intel, Wipro and even the popular business and employment-oriented social network LinkedIn announced mass layoffs last month. With this, the year 2005 saw nearly 62,000 employees laid off across 284 companies. According to experts, Jassy’s memo has affected 1.5 million full-time and part-time employees, as of March, and they believe that it is an indirect way of firing its employees in the second round. In the last few years, Amazon has laid off thousands of employees. In its biggest lay off, Amazon asked 27,000 employees to leave the company in 2022 with more job cuts happening this year.  

In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admitted that AI was the reason behind the job cuts, proving that AI has taken over human jobs, particularly software engineers. Artificial intelligence (AI) was responsible for writing up to 30% of the company's code.