Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on Tuesday that the company will have fewer enterprise employees in the coming years as the company adopts more generative artificial intelligence tools and agents. "We will need fewer people to do some of the jobs we do today and more people to do other types of work," Jassy said in a memo to employees. "It's difficult to know exactly what that will look like over time, but over the next few years we expect this will reduce the total number of employees across the business."
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy
Employees should learn to use AI tools and experiment to figure out "how to get more done with leaner teams," Jassy wrote.
The directive comes as Amazon has cut more than 27,000 jobs since 2022 and has made multiple layoffs this year. In January, Amazon cut about 200 jobs in its North American stores division, and in May, it cut another 100 jobs in its equipment and services division.
Amazon had 1.56 million full- and part-time employees worldwide as of the end of March, according to financial filings, with temporary workers and some contractors also employed in warehouse operations.
Jassy said Amazon is applying generative AI broadly to internal operations, including deploying the technology across its logistics network to assist with inventory placement, demand forecasting and improving the efficiency of warehouse robots.
Other tech companies have made similar statements about how artificial intelligence will transform the workforce. In April, Shopify CEO Toby Luke said that employees need to prove "why their jobs can't be done with artificial intelligence" before applying for additional manpower and resources.
Last month, Klarna CEO Sebastian Semyatsky said the company's headcount had shrunk by 40%, in part due to investments in artificial intelligence and attrition.
Amazon has invested heavily in artificial intelligence, launching a range of its own products and rapidly expanding data centers to meet surging demand for the technology.
In a recent letter to shareholders, Jassy called generative AI “a once-in-a-lifetime reinvention of everything we know.” He added that the technology "is saving businesses a lot of money" and could change industry norms in coding, search, financial services, shopping and more.
"It's developing faster than almost any known technology," Jassy said.