Amazon is cutting roughly 16,000 jobs as part of a company-wide overhaul aimed at “reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy,” even as it says it will keep investing heavily in areas like artificial intelligence.
In a note to employees on Wednesday, Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, said the reductions hit teams that were still finishing restructuring work first announced in October. U.S.-based employees whose roles are eliminated will generally get 90 days to look for other jobs inside Amazon. Those who don’t land a new position will receive severance and other support, according to Galetti.
Amazon is trying to frame the move as a targeted reworking of its org chart, not the start of a recurring pattern of mass layoffs. Galetti told employees the company still expects to hire in “strategic areas,” and emphasized that each team will keep evaluating how fast it can move and how much it can “invent for customers” as the business environment changes.
The timing is notable because it follows a string of operational updates that point in two directions at once: simplify internally, but keep expanding in key businesses. The announcement lands a day after Amazon laid out an aggressive grocery push, including plans to broaden same-day delivery of fresh groceries to more communities in 2026 and open more than 100 new stores over the next few years. Separately, Amazon also said it will close its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores, converting some locations into Whole Foods Market outlets, while continuing to invest in faster delivery options like same-day perishables.
Taken together, the message is that Amazon wants to move faster with fewer layers—while still funding big bets, especially in AI. Galetti’s language is consistent with the broader theme Amazon has leaned on in recent quarters: cut bureaucracy, speed up decision-making, and concentrate resources where it sees the most leverage.
The announcement also arrives as investment and competition around AI continue to intensify across big tech. Amazon noted the broader industry trend of ramped-up AI initiatives from companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet. And while the cuts are an internal Amazon decision, they come against a backdrop where founder Jeff Bezos—who stepped down as CEO in 2021—has been reported to be investing heavily in AI efforts outside the company. The New York Times reported in November that Bezos became deeply involved in a new AI startup called Project Prometheus, which launched with roughly $6.2 billion in funding and counts him among its backers.
For Amazon employees, the next few months will be defined by that 90-day internal search window and by how the restructuring settles across teams. For the broader market, the move is another sign that even the biggest tech companies are reshaping their orgs to prioritize speed and investment capacity—especially as AI spending rises and leaders look for places to offset that cost elsewhere.
This analysis is based on reporting from Fox Business.
Image courtesy of Unsplash.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
