Andy Jassy, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the world's largest e-commerce company Amazon, said on the 17th (local time), "I expect that the company's workforce will decrease in the coming years due to the use of artificial intelligence (AI)."
In an email sent to employees that day, Jassy noted, "Generative AI and AI-based software agents will change the way we work." He added, "Some jobs currently performed will require fewer people, while other types of jobs will need more people."
He stated, "It is hard to know exactly what results this will lead to over time," but projected, "As we gain efficiency through widespread use of AI across the company in the coming years, the overall workforce in office jobs will decrease." He emphasized, "Employees should learn AI tools and experiment with them directly, and find ways to accomplish more with fewer people."
Jassy's remarks reflect concerns that have been raised about AI replacing human jobs amid the AI boom. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, a competitor of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, recently warned that "AI could eliminate half of all entry-level office jobs in the next five years and drive up unemployment by as much as 20%."
Indeed, Duolingo, a foreign language learning service company, announced that it would gradually stop hiring contract workers to perform tasks that AI can handle, while the e-commerce company Shopify asked employees to explain why AI cannot do the tasks when requesting new personnel.
Amazon has been making significant investments in AI, such as launching Alexa+ with generative AI for its voice assistant Alexa, as well as developer and corporate AI tools sold in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) institutional sector. The company also uses AI tools for inventory placement, customer service, and product listings.
Amazon is the second-largest private employer in the U.S. after Walmart, with 1.56 million employees as of the end of March. Most are involved in packaging and shipping products in warehouses, but about 350,000 work in management positions.