Amazon Ramping Up AI, Cutting 14,000 Corporate Jobs

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said earlier this year he anticipated at generative AI would reduce the company’s corporate workforce in the next few years.

That process has apparently started.

The Associated Press is reporting that Amazon will cut some 14,000 corporate jobs while ramping up spending on artificial intelligence and cutting costs in other areas.

Since 2024 started, Amazon has committed to about $10 billion apiece to data center projects in Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina while building its infrastructure to try to keep up with other tech giants making leaps in AI. Amazon is competing with OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta and others. In a conference call with industry analysts in May, Jassy said that the potential for growth in the company’s AWS business is massive.

“If you believe your mission is to make customers’ lives easier and better every day, and you believe that every customer experience will be reinvented with AI, you’re going to invest very aggressively in AI, and that’s what we’re doing. You can see that in the 1,000-plus AI applications we’re building across Amazon. You can see that with our next generation of Alexa, named Alexa+,” he said, according to the AP.

Teams and individuals impacted by the job cuts will be notified on Tuesday. Most workers will be given 90 days to look for a new position internally, Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology at Amazon, wrote in a letter to employees on Tuesday, according to the AP report. Those who can’t find a new role at the company or who opt not to look for one will be provided transitional support including severance pay, outplacement services and health insurance benefits.

Amazon has about 350,000 corporate employees and a total workforce of approximately 1.56 million. The cuts announced Tuesday amount to about a 4% reduction in its corporate workforce.