Amazon cuts 14,000 corporate jobs and blames layoffs on AI  

Amazon is planning to axe around 14,000 corporate jobs. The mass layoffs were expected as part of the company’s cost-cutting drive, but are smaller than the 30,000 job losses previous reports had indicated.

Beth Galetti, a senior executive at the e-commerce giant, broke the news to employees in a message on Tuesday. “The reductions we’re sharing today are a continuation of this work to get even stronger by further reducing bureaucracy, removing layers, and shifting resources to ensure we’re investing in our biggest bets and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs,” Galetti said.

Galetti did not give an indication of what roles are being cut or where they are located. Most employees will have 90 days to look for a new job internally, she said.

“Some may ask why we’re reducing roles when the company is performing well,” Galetti wrote. “This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones). We’re convicted that we need to be organized more leanly.”

Galetti said Amazon expects “to continue hiring in key strategic areas” in 2026, but will also keep searching for areas to “realize efficiency gains,” suggesting more job cuts may be on the horizon.

Amazon’s last major round of job cuts was at the end of 2022 and into 2023, when 27,000 workers were laid off.

Galetti’s memo referenced a message from CEO Andy Jassy sent to employees in June. In it, the executive evangelizes generative AI as both the source of Amazon’s sought efficiency gains — read job cuts — and its strategic direction for products and services. The company has made it clear it hopes to tap automation, robotics, and AI as means of slashing labor costs and ultimately replacing thousands more human workers.