The boss ofAmazonhas told white collar staff at the e-commerce company their jobs could be taken by artificial intelligence in the next few years.
Andrew Jassy told employees that AI agents – tools that carry out tasks autonomously – and generative AI systems such as chatbots would require fewer employees in certain areas.
“As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done,” he said in a memo to staff. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.
“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.”
Amazon employs 1.5 million people worldwide, with about 350,000 working in corporate jobs such as software engineering and marketing.
At the weekendthe chief executive of the UK telecoms company BTsaid advances in AI could lead to deeper job cuts at the company, while Dario Amodei, the chief executive of the AI company Anthropic, said last month AI could wipe out half of all entry-level office jobs.
Jassy said in the near future there would be billions of AI agents working across companies and in people’s daily lives.
“There will be billions of these agents, across every company and in every imaginable field. There will also be agents that routinely do things for you outside of work, from shopping to travel to daily chores and tasks. Many of these agents have yet to be built, but make no mistake, they’re coming, and coming fast,” he said.
Jassy ended the memo by urging employees to be “curious about AI” and to “educate yourself” in the technology and take training courses.
“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,” he said.
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The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – an influential international policy organisation – has estimated the technologycould trigger job lossesin skilled white-collar professions such as law, medicine and finance. The International Monetary Fund has calculated 60% of jobs in advanced economies such as the US and UKare exposed to AIand half of these jobs may be negatively affected.
However, the Tony Blair Institute, which has called for widespread adoption of AI in the public and private sectors, has said the technology could displace up to 3m private sector jobs in the UKbut the net losswill be mitigated by the technology creating new roles.