Amazon’s Andy Jassy warns of job cuts due to generative AI

Dive Brief:

Sharing “some thoughts” about artificial intelligence with employees, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company “will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today” as generative AI usage increases, according to a Monday letter.
While difficult to provide exact numbers on the potential impact, Jassy noted that “we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.” 
The executive added that AI and chatbot rollouts at the company, for example, will also mean people need to be doing other types of jobs than their current work.

Dive Insight:

Despite Amazon already having over “1,000 generative AI services and applications in progress or built” at the company, Jassy indicated that this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of potential.

“We’re going to lean in further in the coming months,” the chief executive said. “We’re going to make it much easier to build agents, and then build (or partner) on several new agents across all of our business units and G&A areas.”

The executive said generative AI is the most transformative technology since the Internet. Jassy encouraged employees to learn about and implement the use of generative AI to remain competitive at the company, which includes brainstorming how to be more productive with “scrappier teams.”

“Those who embrace this change, become conversant in AI, help us build and improve our AI capabilities internally and deliver for customers, will be well-positioned to have high impact and help us reinvent the company,” Jassy added.

In his letter, Jassy outlined several ways in which AI is already being used at Amazon to improve customer and seller experiences. Use cases include rolling out its next-generation personal assistant Alexa+, Amazon’s AI shopping assistant, services for sellers to generate detailed product pages and more.

Amazon isn’t alone in seeing AI’s potential in the retail industry.

Shoptalk’s spring conference in Las Vegas earlier this year featured numerous discussions about AI, including comments from companies such as Toys R Us, Foot Locker and Tapestry.

Walmart has also been “throwing the doors wide open to generative AI”, according to Senior Vice President of Enterprise Business Services David Glick. The mass retailer released a generative AI assistant named Sparky this month following the March debut of its AI assistant for merchants, dubbed Wally.