\n AI is the \u201cmost transformative technology we\u2019ve seen since the internet,\u201d Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, said when announcing layoffs in October.<\/a> She added that the company needs \u201cfewer layers\u201d to \u201cmove as quickly as possible.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In her memo explaining the new round of layoffs, Galetti wrote that Amazon aims to \u201cstrengthen\u201d the organization by \u201creducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Companies are likely shifting resources to areas like data, automation and analytics amid the AI race, according to Zeki Pagda, an assistant professor at Rutgers Business School.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAmazon cannot easily retrain a workforce built for manual logistics or legacy retail systems into one that builds generative AI agents,\u201d Pagda said in an email to CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n Amazon pointed CNN to Galetti\u2019s memo when asked for comment. The company also said AI isn\u2019t the reason behind the vast majority of the cuts, and that it will continue hiring in other areas. Galetti also wrote that \u201cbroad reductions every few months\u201d are not part of Amazon\u2019s plan.\n <\/p>\n \n IBM is one of the most prominent examples of mass layoffs in response to new technology. The company laid off 50,000 people in 1993<\/a>, when chip technology evolved and the tech industry moved away from large mainframe computers<\/a>. Dealing with competition from smaller personal computers, IBM\u2019s business model began turning to services and software instead.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIBM\u2019s challenge is not just to shrink in size but also to remake itself completely into a nimbler and more market-oriented player,\u201d Time magazine correspondent Thomas McCarroll wrote in 1992.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n In 2014, Microsoft laid off 18,000 workers a few months into Satya Nadella\u2019s tenure as CEO. Those cuts came just after Microsoft had absorbed Nokia\u2019s mobile business, hoping to catch up to Google and Apple in the smartphone market.\n <\/p>\n \n Ahead of those layoffs, Nadella wrote in an essay that the company needed to \u201cflatten the organization\u201d as it increasingly focuses on mobile and the cloud, The New York Times<\/a> reported at the time.\n <\/p>\n \n There are other factors that contribute to layoffs aside from new technology, like overhiring, the state of the economy and a shift in corporate strategy. Cisco, for example, pivoted its business to stay relevant, according to Pagda. The rise of cloud computing in the 2010s forced Cisco to decrease its reliance on hardware networking equipment. It started investing more in areas like cybersecurity, data center technologies and cloud services, Pagda said \u2014 although doing so meant slashing thousands of jobs<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n However, Amazon \u2014 a major player in both digital commerce and cloud infrastructure \u2014 isn\u2019t at risk of becoming irrelevant, nor is it struggling financially. It raked in $180.2 billion in net sales in the September quarter alone last year and has a $2.5 trillion market capitalization.\n <\/p>\n \n Still, the goal is to make necessary changes before hardship.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cOne could argue this is Amazon\u2019s leadership saying, \u2018We\u2019ve got to make these changes now because we see where the technology is headed and we see where the market is headed,\u2019\u201d Rob Siegel, lecturer in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, told CNN.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Big Tech continues to wrestle with mass layoffs, most recently with Amazon\u2019s announcement to slash 16,000 jobs. It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-400573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"IBM](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/gettyimages-1540328309.jpg\")
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