Overview
- Amazon confirmed plans to cut 14,000 corporate jobs, even as CEO Andy Jassy told investors the reductions are “not even really AI-driven” and tied them to streamlining after earlier guidance that generative AI and agents would change how work gets done.
- CNBC’s Steve Liesman and Wharton’s Peter Cappelli highlighted “AI-washing,” arguing many recent cuts resemble typical restructuring and post-pandemic right-sizing, with true large-scale worker replacement by AI still difficult and time-consuming to execute.
- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said policymakers are monitoring AI-linked layoffs, while a Yale Budget Lab study found no discernible labor-market disruption so far and Goldman Sachs estimates 6%–7% of U.S. jobs could be displaced if AI is widely adopted, with risk concentrated in entry-level white-collar tasks per WEF analyses.
- Axios reports a growing market for human-in-the-loop “AI trainer” work in which people label and curate data, with examples ranging from Uber’s microtask opportunities to startups like Mercor paying professionals to teach models and OpenAI reportedly tapping students and ex-bankers to train systems.
- A Great Place to Work survey in India found 49% of millennials fear replacement within three to five years and 67% of employees say their organizations are at intermediate or advanced stages of AI implementation, with many reporting access to tools and training.