Amazon's latest wave of corporate layoffs-now exceeding 30,000 roles since last autumn-has been widely framed as a consequence of artificial intelligence replacing human labor. But interviews with current and former employees, including senior figures directly involved in Amazon's AI initiatives, point to a more conventional explanation: cost cutting after years of pandemic-era expansion at Amazon.
Among those laid off was N. Lee Plumb, Amazon's head of AI enablement, who had been one of the company's most active users of its internal AI coding tool, Kiro. "There were only five people in the entire company that were a higher user of Kiro than I was," Plumb told Associated Press. His departure, employees argue, undercuts the notion that Amazon's cuts reflect AI replacing workers.
Plumb, who spent eight years at Amazon, said the underlying work has not vanished. Projects continue, teams remain responsible for the same deliverables, and responsibilities have largely been redistributed. "You could potentially have just been bloated in the first place, reduce head count, attribute it to AI, and now you've got a value story," he said, describing how the AI narrative can obscure financial motives.
Employees affected by the layoffs report that automation has played a limited role in eliminating entire functions. Instead, they describe hiring freezes, delayed backfills and tighter budget approvals. When staff leave, positions often remain vacant, creating leaner teams rather than automated workflows. The result, workers say, is higher workloads rather than machine substitution.
The cuts come amid a broader recalibration across the technology sector following aggressive pandemic hiring. Amazon rapidly expanded to meet surging demand for e-commerce and cloud services, swelling its corporate ranks. As growth slowed, management shifted focus toward profitability and operational discipline.
Chief Executive Andy Jassy has framed the layoffs as part of an effort to reduce bureaucracy. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he criticized the layers created during the pandemic boom, remarking: "You've got the pre-meeting for the pre-meeting for the meeting." Leadership messaging has emphasized efficiency, streamlining and speed, positioning the company as leaner and more focused.
The numbers underscore the scale of the retrenchment:
- About 14,000 corporate roles were cut in October.
- Another 16,000 were eliminated in January.
- Combined reductions since fall now exceed 30,000 positions, the largest corporate layoffs in Amazon's history.
Artificial intelligence has nonetheless become a central talking point. Analysts note that linking layoffs to AI can signal innovation and long-term efficiency to investors, even when reductions are driven by budgets. From a market perspective, attributing cuts to technology suggests strategy rather than retrenchment.
Research cited by Goldman Sachs supports employees' claims, finding that only a small fraction of layoffs across major firms have been directly tied to AI automation. While AI tools are increasingly embedded in workflows, they have not yet displaced large numbers of workers outright.
