The Amazon boss told the white-collar staff at e-commerce company that they could work in artificial intelligence in the coming years.
Andrew Jassy tells employees that AI agents (a tool that autonomously perform tasks) will have fewer employees in certain areas of AI systems, such as chatbots.
“As we deploy more generative AI and agents, it should change the way we work,” he said in a note to staff. “There are fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of work.
“It's difficult to know exactly where this is online over time, but we expect this to reduce our total workforce over the next few years.”
Amazon employs 1.5 million people worldwide, with approximately 350,000 working in corporate jobs such as software engineering and marketing.
Over the weekend, the CEO of UK telecom company BT said that advances in AI could lead to deeper employment cuts for the company, but last month, AI company humanity chief executive Dario Amodei said that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level office jobs.
Jassy said billions of AI agents will be working in the daily lives of the entire company and people in the near future.
“These agents are billions in every company and every imaginable field. From shopping to daily chores and tasks, there are also agents who do things on a daily basis for you outside of work. Many of these agents have not been built yet, but there's no mistake.
Jassy finished the note by encouraging employees to be “interested in AI,” and “educate themselves” with technology and taking training courses.
“People embracing this change, becoming familiar with AI, building and improving AI capabilities internally and providing them to their customers will be influential and helping them reinvent the company,” he said.
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The economic cooperation and development organization, an influential international policy organization, estimates that the technology can lead to unemployment for skilled white-collar occupations in law, medicine, and finance. The International Monetary Fund has 60% of jobs in advanced economies such as the US and the UK exposed to AI, and half of these jobs could be negatively affected.
However, the Tony Blair Institute, which is seeking widespread adoption of AI in the public and private sectors, says the technology could drive away jobs in the private sector up to 3M in the UK, but net losses will be mitigated by creating new roles through technology.
