Amazon has reportedly laid off hundreds of employees in its cloud-computing unit, as confirmed by Reuters on Thursday.
A spokesperson at the company, Brad Glasser, confirmed that Amazon is laying off employees in AWS, but did not specify which teams were affected.
Internal messages suggest that affected teams include frontline support, training and certification, and the AWS Worldwide Specialist Organization, which works with customers and product teams.
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Amazon said the cuts weren’t primarily due to investments in AI but are a result of efforts to streamline the workforce and refocus on certain priorities. The move is part of a larger restructuring effort to improve efficiency across the company. CEO Andy Jassy has emphasized the importance of making Amazon “leaner,” with recent comments highlighting the growing role of generative AI in reducing corporate overhead.
Recall that last month, Jassy stated that the company’s corporate workforce will shrink further in the coming years as a result of AI. He said Amazon would “need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.”
Jassy’s remarks sparked concern among employees about job security, especially as automation becomes more prominent within Amazon’s operations. The company has continued to lay off workers this year, after cutting more than 27,000 jobs since 2022.
Despite the recent layoffs, Amazon says it is offering support to affected staff. U.S.-based employees will receive approximately 60 days of continued pay and benefits, in addition to severance packages, extended healthcare coverage, and access to internal job placement services. The company is also encouraging laid-off workers to apply for open roles in high-priority departments where hiring is ongoing.
Importantly, the job cuts are not seen as a result of declining performance within AWS. On the contrary, AWS remains a core profit engine for Amazon. In Q1 2025, AWS reported $29.3 billion in revenue—a 17% increase from the previous year—and operating income surged 23% to $11.5 billion. Its operating margin expanded to 32%, up from 29% the prior year, reflecting strong cost discipline and demand for cloud services, particularly AI-driven workloads.
AWS’s growth is fueled by enterprise adoption of its AI and machine learning tools, such as Bedrock and SageMaker, alongside infrastructure upgrades like the Graviton4 chip and Trainum accelerators. Strategic partnerships, like the $4 billion investment in Anthropic, bolster AWS’s position in generative AI, competing with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
AWS’s annualized revenue run rate is now over $110 billion, with analysts projecting sustained double-digit growth through 2026 due to AI and digital transformation trends. However, AWS faces intensifying competition from Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, particularly in AI infrastructure, where Oracle’s partnerships with OpenAI and xAI are gaining traction.
Notably, amidst the recent job cuts, Business Insider reports that several Amazon units now require employees to detail how they use AI at work in their promotion applications. The policy, spearheaded by Ring inventor Jamie Siminoff, aims to promote innovative thinking in the talent-evaluation process.
The move mirrors similar AI-first directives from Shopify and Duolingo, though the policies are not yet companywide. This is part of a growing trend among tech CEOs to incorporate AI use into their talent-evaluation process.
Amidst the significant layoffs at the company, it is not alone in this trend. In February 2025, Google also trimmed its cloud division workforce, citing the need to align with evolving customer needs and future growth opportunities. As Amazon doubles down on AI and cloud services, the recent layoffs suggest a company in transition focused on efficiency, innovation, and realignment for long-term competitiveness.