“Not AI-Driven”: Jassy Rebrands 14,000 Layoffs as “Culture” Shift

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is rebranding the company’s 14,000 corporate layoffs as a “culture” shift, explicitly denying they are “AI-driven” in a call with investors. The statement comes as the company’s stock surged 9% on blowout Q3 earnings.
Jassy claimed the goal was to create a more “malleable, startup-style operation.” This contrasts with a company blog post that cited “advancements in AI” as a reason for “staying nimble” and Jassy’s own past comments on AI’s impact on jobs.
The $2.4tn company’s finances are booming. It reported $180.17bn in revenue and $1.95 EPS, easily beating estimates. The growth was led by its AWS cloud division, which grew 20% to $33bn.
This cloud growth, the fastest since 2022, is particularly notable as it’s the first financial report since a major global outage. The incident failed to slow AWS’s momentum.
While Jassy distanced the layoffs from AI, he embraced AI in the company’s product roadmap. He touted the Rufus shopping assistant and Zoox robotaxis as key to Amazon’s future growth and competition with rivals.