Amazon is preparing for another round of corporate job cuts that underscores how deeply the company is reshaping itself after years of expansion, even as its leadership offers shifting explanations around artificial intelligence, culture, and long-term strategy.
According to two people familiar with the matter who spoke to Reuters, Amazon plans to begin a second wave of layoffs as early as next week, with the scale expected to roughly match the cuts announced in October. That earlier round eliminated about 14,000 white-collar roles, putting the company roughly halfway toward a broader plan to reduce close to 30,000 corporate positions.
If the latest cuts go ahead as outlined, Amazon will have completed one of its most sweeping restructurings outside the pandemic period.
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The layoffs are expected to affect several of Amazon’s most prominent units, including Amazon Web Services, the core retail business, Prime Video, and the human resources division known internally as People Experience and Technology. The widespread nature of affected teams suggests the exercise is not a targeted response to a single underperforming unit, but a cross-company effort to shrink layers of management and rethink how work gets done across the organization.
People familiar with the plans cautioned that details could still change, reflecting the uncertainty that has become a hallmark of Amazon’s internal planning in recent years.
When Amazon announced the October cuts, the company pointed directly to artificial intelligence, telling employees in an internal note that “this generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet.” The message echoed a broader narrative across the technology sector, where companies have increasingly tied job reductions to the efficiency gains promised by generative AI and automation, particularly for corporate and support roles.
Yet that explanation was later tempered by Chief Executive Andy Jassy, who told analysts on the company’s third-quarter earnings call that the layoffs were “not really financially driven and it’s not even really AI-driven.” Instead, he framed the reductions as cultural, aimed at addressing what he described as excessive bureaucracy and too many layers of management that had built up during Amazon’s rapid hiring over the past decade.
This means the two accounts point to a more nuanced reality. AI may not be directly replacing tens of thousands of jobs at Amazon, but it is clearly influencing how leadership thinks about productivity, staffing, and scale.
Tools that automate reporting, customer support, internal analytics, and parts of software development make it easier to justify leaner teams, even if executives stop short of saying AI is the primary driver. At the same time, Jassy’s focus on culture signals frustration with slower decision-making and internal complexity as Amazon grew into one of the world’s largest employers.
The timing of the cuts also reflects broader pressures on the business. Growth at AWS, long Amazon’s profit engine, has slowed compared with its earlier years, even as competition in cloud computing intensifies, and capital spending on AI infrastructure accelerates. Prime Video continues to absorb high content costs, while the retail business operates on tight margins in many markets. Trimming corporate headcount offers a way to contain costs while preserving investment in strategic priorities such as AI chips, data centers, and logistics automation.
The latest planned cuts add to a prolonged period of instability for employees. Since late 2022, Amazon has announced multiple rounds of layoffs across devices, retail, advertising, cloud, and HR, eroding the perception that any team is insulated from restructuring. Even business units seen as central to Amazon’s future have faced reductions, reinforcing the sense that efficiency, rather than growth alone, now defines the company’s internal calculus.
More broadly, Amazon’s move mirrors a shift across Big Tech, where companies are trying to reconcile massive spending on AI with demands from investors for discipline and returns. Framing layoffs around culture rather than profits or automation allows executives to position the changes as strategic and proactive, even as they acknowledge that the era of unchecked hiring is over.
If the coming round proceeds as expected, it will further cement a reset underway under Jassy: flatter teams, fewer managers, and a workforce shaped by both technological change and a deliberate push to remake how the company operates.