GenAI could replace jobs at Amazon, says CEO

Generative AI (genAI) could shrink the workforce at Amazon, according to the company’s chief executive Andy Jassy.

In a memo to staff, Jassy said that gen AI is changing the way work at Amazon is done and the company will need “fewer people doing some of the jobs being done today and more people doing other types of jobs.”

Jassy said that technologies like genAI are rare, coming along just once in a lifetime, and Amazon is investing heavily in the technology.

He highlighted that the company has over 1,000 genAI services and applications in progress or built, adding that this is a small fraction of what the company will ultimately build.

These AI agents will change the scope and speed at which Amazon works and Jassy said that they will allow the company to focus less on rote work and more on strategic thinking on improving customer experience.

“Agents will be teammates that we can call on at various stages of our work, and that will get wiser and more helpful with more experience,” Jassy added. “If we build and leverage the right agents, it’s going to rapidly accelerate our ability to make customers lives easier and better every day, and it’s going to make our jobs even more exciting and fun than they are today.”

Jassy urged employees to be curious about AI, to experiment with the technology and to educate themselves through workshops and other training schemes.

Amazon has a number of AI tools available to customers, including a genAI short-form audio feature that synthetises product summaries and reviews which it launched last month.

The feature uses large language models (LLMs) to generate scripts, drawing from Amazon’s product catalogue, customer reviews and information from around the web, and then translating content into short audio clips.

In May, the company launched an AI skills training programme in the UK to train around 100,000 people in the technology by 2030.