‘Will need more people doing …’: How Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s employee memo ‘warned’ about thousands of layoffs months in advance
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy warned employees in June 2025 that artificial intelligence would shrink the company’s corporate workforce, four months before the company announced 14,000 job cuts on October 28. The early signal gave staff a preview of what would become one of the company’s largest layoff rounds since the pandemic era.In a company-wide message dated June 17, Jassy explicitly stated that AI adoption would fundamentally reshape Amazon’s staffing needs. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” he wrote, adding that the company expected “this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively.”
CEO Andy Jassy urged staff to embrace AI or risk being left behind
Jassy framed the changes as essential to maintaining Amazon’s competitive edge in the AI revolution. He described generative AI as “the most transformative technology since the Internet” and emphasized the company’s commitment to operating like “the world’s largest start-up—customer-obsessed, inventive, fast-moving, lean, scrappy.”The CEO outlined Amazon’s ambitious AI roadmap, revealing that the company had over 1,000 generative AI services and applications in development. He urged employees to embrace the transformation, attend AI workshops, and experiment with the technology. “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,” Jassy wrote.
From warning to reality: 14,000 jobs cut despite record profits
When the layoffs materialized in late October, affected employees received termination emails from Beth Galetti, senior vice president of People Experience and Technology. The cuts represented approximately 4% of Amazon’s 350,000 corporate workforce and marked the deepest job reductions since 27,000 positions were eliminated between late 2022 and early 2023.The timing drew scrutiny as Amazon reported $18 billion in quarterly profits and planned capital expenditures exceeding $120 billion for the year—a nearly 50% increase from 2024, largely directed toward AI and cloud infrastructure development.Galetti’s October message echoed Jassy’s June warning, stating that AI was “enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before” and necessitated a leaner organizational structure. Reuters reported that total job cuts could reach 30,000 employees, with additional reductions expected in January 2026 after the holiday shopping season.Affected employees received 90 days of full pay and benefits, severance packages, and job placement assistance as part of their transition support.
