A sizzling potato: CEOs like to sing the praises of generative AI whereas tiptoeing across the reality it may value folks their jobs. However Amazon boss Andy Jassy has simply mentioned the quiet half out loud, admitting that the expertise will cut back the corporate’s company workforce over the following few years.
In a message despatched to staff this week, Jassy mentioned generative AI was a “once-in-a-lifetime” expertise that utterly adjustments what’s potential for patrons and companies.
Jassy went on to focus on the completely different areas of Amazon the place AI and brokers are being carried out. “As we roll out extra generative AI and brokers, it ought to change the way in which our work is completed. We are going to want fewer folks doing a few of the jobs which are being carried out right now, and extra folks doing different varieties of jobs,” he mentioned.
The CEO revealed that Amazon now has over 1,000 generative AI providers and functions in progress or constructed, and extra are coming.
Then got here the half most executives skip over: “It is exhausting to know precisely the place this nets out over time, however within the subsequent few years, we count on that this can cut back our whole company workforce as we get effectivity good points from utilizing AI extensively throughout the corporate.”
Andy Jassy actually loves generative AI
Amazon is one in every of many tech giants that has gone all-in on AI since its arrival. Jassy mentioned final 12 months that it might be as huge because the cloud and web. He additionally dedicated to spending $100 billion this 12 months on the expertise.
It is perhaps thrilling and money-saving instances for Amazon and Jassy, however the firm’s 1.5 million staff are unlikely to be as thrilled.
Jassy did supply some recommendation to apprehensive staff: “be interested in AI, educate your self, attend workshops and take trainings, use and experiment with AI every time you may, take part in your group’s brainstorms to determine how you can invent for our clients extra rapidly and expansively.” All that may seemingly be helpful as they hunt for a brand new job.
It is not simply company staff which are below menace from new expertise. Amazon has launched tons of of 1000’s of robots to its warehouses over the previous couple of years. The machines have gotten more and more superior and human-like: the newest AI-powered mannequin has a way of contact. Amazon can be experimenting with humanoid robots in its supply operations.
A few of these not being changed by AI at Amazon are discovering the expertise is making their lives more durable, not simpler. Software program engineers at the moment are below big strain on the firm as managers elevate expectations and tighten deadlines, pushing engineers to undertake AI-powered instruments like Microsoft’s Copilot and Amazon’s assistants to maintain up with the relentless tempo. Growth groups being reduce in half is exacerbating the state of affairs, which has been in comparison with an meeting line.
The dialog about jobs misplaced to AI has intensified just lately. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei just lately warned that the expertise may wipe out about half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within the subsequent 5 years, resulting in unemployment spikes of as much as 20%. Nvidia boss Jensen Huang, whose firm is driving the AI revolution with its {hardware}, disagrees – naturally.
