In a seismic shift that underscores the transformative and often disruptive power of artificial intelligence, tech behemoth Amazon is preparing to cut approximately 30,000 corporate and office roles, according to multiple reports from major news outlets including the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. The move represents a stark belt-tightening measure aimed at freeing up capital for the company’s massively ramped-up investments in AI.
The layoffs, which are expected to begin as early as Tuesday, October 28, 2025, will impact nearly 10% of Amazon’s 350,000-strong corporate workforce. Notably, the cuts are not expected to affect the company’s vast network of over 1.2 million warehouse and distribution center employees, who form the backbone of its e-commerce logistics.
Amazon did not respond to requests for comment from AFP regarding the reported plans.
The layoffs are not being framed as a sign of weakness, but rather as a strategic reallocation of resources. Under CEO Andy Jassy, Amazon is in an intense race with rivals Microsoft and Google to dominate the burgeoning field of generative AI. This requires immense capital expenditure on data centers, specialized AI chips, and top-tier research talent.
Jassy has been vocal about his conviction in AI’s transformative potential. “Our conviction that AI will change every customer experience is starting to play out,” he stated during Amazon’s most recent quarterly earnings call. He has outlined a vision where AI streamlines everything from customer service interactions and supply chain management to internal office operations, inherently reducing the need for certain human-led roles.
This massive pivot comes at a critical juncture. Amazon is scheduled to report its latest quarterly earnings on Thursday, October 30, 2025, and faces significant pressure from Wall Street to demonstrate that its colossal AI investments are yielding tangible returns.
“AWS will be under pressure to both show revenue acceleration and operating margin improvement in light of its massive AI investments,” said Emarketer principal analyst Sky Canaves, highlighting the tightrope the company must walk.
The Pressure on Amazon Web Services (AWS)
The job cuts come on the heels of a significant black eye for Amazon’s most profitable division, Amazon Web Services (AWS). Last week, a major outage in its cloud network brought a swath of the global internet to a standstill for hours. The disruption affected popular services including:
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Streaming: Amazon’s own Prime Video and Disney+
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Tech & Social: Perplexity AI, Fortnite, Airbnb, Snapchat, and Duolingo
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Communications: Signal and WhatsApp in Europe
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Finance: Banking services like Lloyd’s
Amazon later identified the cause as an issue with the Domain Name System (DNS), the fundamental “address book” of the internet. The incident served as a stark reminder of the world’s deep dependence on the cloud infrastructure provided by AWS, which leads the market, followed by Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
This outage will undoubtedly be a key point of scrutiny during the upcoming earnings call, as investors and clients alike seek assurances about the reliability of the very platform on which Amazon is staking its AI future.
Amazon’s move is the latest in a series of similar restructurings across the tech industry. For years, tech giants hired aggressively to meet pandemic-fueled demand. Now, the focus has sharply shifted to efficiency and profitability, with AI seen as both the driver of future growth and a tool for automating existing roles.
The reported 30,000 job cuts at Amazon follow significant layoffs at other tech leaders, including a recent report that Meta is cutting around 600 roles in its AI unit, a move that also reflects a strategic realignment rather than a simple reduction in force.
The Human and Strategic Cost
While the stock market reacted mildly positively to the news of cost-cutting, with Amazon shares ending the day slightly up, the human impact of laying off 30,000 employees is profound. It represents a wave of uncertainty for corporate workers across departments like recruiting, human resources, marketing, and certain engineering teams that may be deemed redundant or less critical to the core AI mission.
The message from Amazon’s leadership is clear: the company is entering a new era. The e-commerce and cloud computing titan is aggressively transforming into an AI-first company, and this painful restructuring is the price of securing its position in the next technological frontier. The world will be watching this Thursday to see if the company can convince investors that this high-stakes bet is already paying off.