Amazon CEO Andy Jassy: We Expect a Reduction in Our White-Collar Workforce Due to Artificial Intelligence

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy delivered AI-focused messages in a note sent to employees and made publicly available. In the message titled “Some Thoughts on Generative AI,” he stated that they use Generative AI to improve customers’ lives, adding, “Initially, there was a strong belief that every customer experience would be redesigned with AI and that entirely new experiences we could only dream of would become possible. That belief is rapidly becoming a reality.”

“We Are Also Extensively Using Generative AI in Our Internal Operations”

Stating that they have made comprehensive investments in Generative AI, Andy Jassy gave examples of AI agents such as the next-generation personal assistant “Alexa,” the “Lens” feature which allows users to take a photo of a product and see shopping results, “Buy for Me” which enables a shopping assistant to purchase an item from another seller’s website on your behalf, and “Recommended Size” which predicts the most suitable size for you based on past purchases and the sizing patterns of different brands.

Jassy also noted that they offer developer-specific products on the AWS side, listing tools such as Trainium2, SageMaker, Bedrock, Nova, Q, and QCLI.

Andy Jassy continued: “We are also extensively using Generative AI in our internal operations. We leverage AI to improve inventory placement, demand forecasting, and robot efficiency in our logistics network—which has reduced costs and increased delivery speed. We rebuilt our Customer Service Chatbot and made it better than the previous version. We also use GenAI to compile product detail pages in a smarter and more engaging way.”

“AI Agents Will Change the Way We Work and Live”

“We are still relatively early in the journey,” said Andy Jassy. “We strongly believe that AI agents will change the way we work and live. Think of agents as AI-powered software systems that perform tasks on behalf of users or systems. You tell these agents what you want in natural language; they can then browse the web and various data sources to summarize information, conduct deep research, write code, detect anomalies, highlight insights, translate languages and code, and automate many time-consuming tasks.

There will be billions of agents in every company and in every field. Moreover, agents will be frequently involved in our personal lives as well, from shopping to travel, daily tasks to household chores. Many of them haven’t been built yet, but rest assured—they’re coming fast.”

Andy Jassy: Agents Will Be Teammates

Andy Jassy said, “This agent-driven future is so appealing to Amazon because these agents will transform the speed and scope of our innovation for customers. Thanks to agents, we will be able to start many tasks from a more advanced starting point. We’ll spend less time on routine work and more time focusing on how to improve and invent new customer experiences.

Agents will be teammates we can rely on at various stages of our work, and they will become smarter and more useful as they gain experience. If we build and use the right agents, we will greatly accelerate our ability to make customers’ lives easier and better every day, and we’ll make our jobs more exciting and fun than they are today.”

“Artificial Intelligence Will Be a Key Catalyst”

Stating that they aim to continue operating like the world’s biggest startup, Andy Jassy gave the message that they will work with “customer-focused, innovative, fast-moving, lean, scrappy teams with a mission to build better for customers.” He also said, “We will continue to take steps that help us move faster, take ownership, and invent. At this point, artificial intelligence will be a key catalyst.”

Emphasizing that they are working on or have completed more than 1,000 Generative AI services and applications, Andy Jassy said, “But this is only a small fraction of what we will build at our scale. In the coming months, we will dive even deeper into this space. We will make it much easier to develop agents and then build or partner on new agents across all our business units and general administrative areas.”

“We Expect a Reduction in Our White-Collar Workforce”

Andy Jassy gave the following message to company employees: “As we scale up the use of Generative AI and agents, the way we do our jobs will also change. We will need fewer people for some tasks being done today, and more people for others. It’s hard to know exactly how this will all play out in the long run, but we expect a reduction in our total white-collar workforce with the widespread use of AI across the company in the next few years.

As we go through this transformation together, be curious about AI, educate yourselves, join workshops and training sessions, use and experiment with AI at every opportunity, and participate in brainstorming sessions on how we can innovate faster and more broadly for customers within your teams. Let’s discover together how we can do more with fewer resources.”

“The Most Transformative Technology Since the Internet Is Now Here”

Andy Jassy concluded his words as follows: “When I started at Amazon in 1997 as an Assistant Product Manager, we worked in smaller but effective teams and made a big impact. We had no tools similar to Generative AI, but we had broad responsibilities, big goals, and significant opportunities to improve the customer experience. Fast forward 28 years, and the most transformative technology since the internet is now here.

Anyone who embraces this change, becomes proficient in AI, develops our internal capabilities, and turns them into benefits for the customer will have a high impact and play a key role in rebuilding the company. Many more innovations await us with Generative AI. I am excited about the progress we’ve made, hopeful about our future plans, and I look forward to working with you during this transformation.”