- Amazon CEO Andy Jassy warned employees that Amazon expects a smaller corporate workforce in the coming years due to efficiency gains from generative AI and digital agents.
- Jassy emphasized that while some jobs will be eliminated, new roles will emerge, urging employees to see AI as a helpful "teammate" rather than a replacement.
- Jassy's remarks reflect growing concern in the tech industry about AI's transformative and potentially disruptive impact on the global workforce.
- Dario Amodei, CEO of AI lab Anthropic, warned that AI could eliminate up to 50 percent of entry-level white-collar jobs and push unemployment to 20 percent within five years.
- Both CEOs stress the need for proactive adaptation and policy changes, as AI tools quickly advance in performing complex intellectual tasks once thought to be uniquely human.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has warned employees that the company expects a smaller corporate workforce in the future, driven by increased reliance on artificial intelligence.
In a candid internal blog post shared publicly on Tuesday, June 17, Jassy outlined how generative AI and digital agents will reshape not just Amazon's operations but the broader landscape of work.
"As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today and more people doing other types of jobs," he wrote. "It's hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company." (Related: CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED: Humanoid robots claim they could run the world better than humans.)
Jassy described AI not as a replacement for humans, but as a powerful set of tools that will work alongside employees. He urged Amazon workers to view AI systems as "teammates" that will become "wiser and more helpful" with experience and usage.
But the tone of the message marks a notable shift in Silicon Valley's AI narrative – one increasingly tempered by warnings of disruption. Jassy predicted that AI agents will soon be embedded "across every company and in every imaginable field," impacting "how we all work and live."
"Many of these agents have yet to be built but make no mistake, they're coming, and coming fast," Jassy said.
Anthropic CEO sounds alarm on white-collar job losses as AI industry braces for disruption
Jassy's message comes amid growing concerns in the tech industry about AI's impact on white-collar employment.
In May, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned the public during an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper that AI could cause unemployment to spike to as high as 20 percent in the next one to five years, primarily by eliminating entry-level, white-collar jobs.
Amodei pointed specifically to the kinds of jobs that rely on skills like summarizing documents, synthesizing research and writing code – tasks he said AI can now do as well as "a smart college student." That puts a significant swath of the workforce at risk. He also claimed that half of entry-level white-collar jobs would be eliminated, citing tasks in administration, legal review, customer service and programming as among the most vulnerable.
"We have to make sure that people can adapt, and that we adopt the right policies… but we have to act now. We can't just sleepwalk into it," Amodei said.
All this, while his own company, a leading AI research lab, continues to develop advanced tools capable of working "nearly seven hours a day," matching the productivity of a full-time employee.
In other words, these companies, including Amazon, suggest that the company prepare employees for a future in which fewer traditional roles exist and where adaptability to AI-driven change will be critical, despite not announcing layoffs tied to AI initiatives.
Read more about the future of AI in Robots.news.
Watch the video below to learn more about the human-like and humanoid robots that China is creating.
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