Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees Tuesday that AI is citing “increasing efficiency” as the driving force behind the company's white-collar workforce over the next few years.
Amazon employees didn't have it.
A message seen by Business Insider shows that beyond the internal Slack channel, Amazon's white-collar workers were torn apart by Jassy's message, targeting leadership and AI's non-ai.
Business Insider watched numerous messages found on three different internal channels, including a total of thousands of employees.
Criticism was spreading throughout the channel. Some people have called for a change in how companies think and warned about the risk of overloading with AI. Others expressed dull concern about the looming layoffs, but some requested that leadership be shared in fallout.
“On Tuesday, there's nothing more motivated than reading your work will be replaced by AI in a few years,” one person wrote in Slack.
Some Amazon employees appeared to agree with Jassy's move.
One wrote that “no one will notice,” hinting at the company's decision to cut management levels this year, where middle managers could generally be replaced by Amazon's AI apps.
“At least he yelled out the quiet part,” another employee wrote. “We all knew that, but now it's clearly part of the plan.”
An Amazon spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
AI as a partner or exchange
One important discussion centers around how AI is located within the corporate environment.
Many of the internal Slack messages pointed out that 50% productivity gains from AI offers businesses two options. Reduce employees, maintain current output, or keep your team as is and grow your business.
In this case, they argued that Amazon is choosing to do the same thing.
“We need to lead changes to reconfiguring AI as a partner rather than as an alternative or tool,” one writes. “That's a slightly different vision from what Andy implies.”
Another wrote that Jussy defines success as a “small corporate worker” rather than from a customer satisfaction perspective. BI previously reported that Amazon is frozen in employment budgets for retailers this year.
“He shows that as CEO, he can deliver one of them, not the other,” the person wrote.
“The real result”
Others expressed concern about being leaning too heavily on AI without proper protection. Some found the overview tool useful, but employees warned that AI is not always a reliable source of truth. It could lead to poor decisions and a future where people look to AI to solve the problems that they first raised, they said.
“It's dangerous and will have real consequences,” one employee wrote.
Some employees questioned whether Tuesday's memo signaled further layoffs first.
A message from Jassy said they were filling up “Deep Dread” immediately for them, but he said he saw another message as another example of a ruthless focus on cost-cutting over the years.
“It seems like this is [antithesis] Thinking about it, one of the people wrote that it is part of a continuing trend that CEOs don't seem to have a vision for a company other than “doing what we do today.”
Some employees took a cynical view of the role of senior executives. While questioning why AI-led cuts appear to be targeting rank and file workers, top leadership remains untouched. For example, Amazon's Senior S Team has been expanded only under Jassy's watch.
“Will I have less SVPS?” wrote one person.
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