Amazon CEO warns: AI could replace office jobs

The boss of Amazon has told office workers at the e-commerce company that their jobs could be replaced by artificial intelligence in the coming years, The Guardian reports, CE Report quotes Kosova Press.

Andrew Jassy told employees that AI agents – tools that perform tasks autonomously – and AI-generated systems like chatbots will require fewer employees in some areas.

“As we deploy more generative AI and agents, it will change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people for some of the jobs we do today, and more people for other types of work,” he said in a memo to staff.

“It’s hard to know exactly how this will play out over time, but over the next few years, we expect this to reduce our total number of employees in the office.”

Amazon employs 1.5 million people worldwide, with about 350,000 working in corporate positions such as software engineering and marketing.

Last weekend, the chief executive of British telecoms company BT said that advances in AI could lead to deeper job cuts, while Dario Amodei, the director of AI company Anthropic, said last month that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level office jobs.

Jassy said that in the near future there will be billions of AI agents working in companies and in people's daily lives.

“There will be billions of these agents, in every company and in every conceivable field. There will also be agents who will regularly do things for you outside of work, from shopping to travel to chores and everyday tasks. Many of these agents haven’t been built yet, but make no mistake – they are coming, and they are coming fast,” he said.

Jassy concluded the memo by urging employees to be “curious about AI” and to “get educated” about the technology and attend training courses.

“Those who embrace this change, become AI-savvy, help us build and improve our internal AI capabilities, and deliver more for customers will be well-positioned to have a big impact and help us reshape the company,” he said.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development – ​​a powerful international political organization – has estimated that technology could cause job losses in skilled formal professions such as law, medicine and finance.

The International Monetary Fund has estimated that 60% of jobs in developed economies like the US and UK are exposed to AI, and half of these jobs could be negatively affected.

However, the Tony Blair Institute, which has called for widespread use of AI in the public and private sectors, has said that the technology could displace up to 3 million private sector jobs in the UK, but the net loss will be mitigated by the creation of new roles through technology.