Just one week after a report that Amazon wanted to replace 75% of its workforce with robots, the online retail giant has announced that it is laying off 14,000 employees to reduce "bureaucracy" and invest in "our biggest bets" -- namely, artificial intelligence.
"This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we've seen since the internet, and it's enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones)," said Beth Galetti, SVP of People Experience and Technology, in a blog post on Tuesday. "We're convinced that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business."
But a spokesperson for Amazon said not to blame artificial intelligence for most of the job losses.
"AI is not the reason behind the vast majority of reductions," a company representative told CNET. The spokesperson said the reductions are part of the company's effort at "reducing layers, increasing ownership, and helping reduce bureaucracy to drive speed and ownership, and be set up to invent, collaborate, be connected, and deliver the absolute best for customers."
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Citing information from Amazon workers, Reuters said the Amazon departments most affected would be devices, advertising, Prime Video, HR and Amazon Web Services. Twitch has also reportedly been affected.
Reuters also reported that there would be more job cuts in the future, bringing the total job losses to 30,000.
The layoffs are reportedly the largest in Amazon history, and come just months after CEO Andy Jassy outlined his vision for how the company would rapidly ramp up its development of generative AI and AI agents. The cuts are the latest in a wave of layoffs this year as tech giants including Microsoft, Accenture, Salesforce and India's TCS have reduced their workforces by thousands in what has become a frenzied push to invest in AI.
CNET
In a report issued earlier in October, it was projected that the global AI infrastructure market -- driven mainly by the need to construct massive data centers -- would grow from $26.18 billion in 2024 to $221.40 billion by 2034, an annual growth rate of nearly 24%.
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